Exploiting small uncertainties on the part of opponents, players in long, finitely repeated games can maintain false reputations that lead to a large variety of equilibrium outcomes. Even cooperation in a finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma is obtainable. Can such false reputations be...

A canonical interpretation of an infinitely repeated game is that of a “dynastic” repeated game: a stage game repeatedly played by successive generations of finitely-lived players with dynastic preferences. These two models are in fact equivalent when the past history of play is observable...

This paper studies the role of memory and communication in games between ongoing organizations. In each organization, each individual, upon entry into the game, replaces his predecessor who has the same preferences and faces the same strategic possibilities. Entry across distinct organizations...

The paper analyzes the Nash equilibria of two-person discounted repeated games with one-sided incomplete information and known own payoffs. If the informed player is arbitrarily patient relative to the uninformed player, then the characterization for the informed player's payoffs is essentially...

In the model of Funaki and Yamato (1999) the tragedy of the commons can be avoided with pessimistic players, while this does not hold for optimistic players. We propose a new core concept to overcome this puzzle and provide numerical simulations of simple games where the conclusions coincide or...

We define the canonical form of a cost spanning tree problem. The canonical form has the property that reducing the cost of any arc, the minimal cost of connecting agents to the source is also reduced. We argue that the canonical form is a relevant concept in this kind of problems and study a...

This paper examines existence of Markov equilibria in the class of dynamic political games (DPGs). DPGs are dynamic games in which political institutions are endogenously determined each period. The process of change is both recursive and instrumental: the rules for political aggregation at date...

The resolution of a conflict often has an impact which extends beyond the remits of the parties directly involved in the confrontation (e.g. labour negotiations in sectors of public interest, where a strike would impact on the public at large). Once this is recognised, models addressing...

This paper studies dynamic, endogenous institutional change. We introduce the class of dynamic political games (DPGs), dynamic games in which future political aggregation rules are decided under current ones, and the resulting institutional choices do not affect payoffs or technology directly. A...

We investigate the role that self-control problems modeled as time-inconsistent, present-biased preferences and a person's awareness of those problems might play in leading people to develop and maintain harmful addictions. Present-biased preferences create a tendency to over-consume addictive...