We present a dynamic lifecycle model of women’s choices with respect to partnership status, labour supply and fertility when a male partner’s true tendency for abusive behaviour is unobserved. The model is estimated by the method of simulated moments using longitudinal data from the Avon...

We characterize the class of symmetric two-player games in which tit-for-tat cannot be beaten even by very sophisticated opponents in a repeated game. It turns out to be the class of exact potential games. More generally, there is a class of simple imitation rules that includes tit-for-tat but...

We show that in symmetric two-player exact potential games, the simple decision rule imitate-if-better cannot be beaten by any strategy in a repeated game by more than the maximal payoff difference of the one-period game. Our results apply to many interesting games including examples like 2x2...

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule 'imitate-if-better' can hardly be beaten by any strategy. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable in the sense that there is no strategy that can exploit imitation as a...

How can a rational player strategically control a myopic best reply player in a repeated two-player game? We show that in games with strategic substitutes or strategic complements the optimal control strategy is monotone in the initial action of the opponent, in time periods, and in the discount...

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule imitate-the-best can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and show that it can only be beaten by much in games that are of...