This short paper shows that in an affiliated value setting one more bidder at the auction stage need not induce a higher expected welfare in either ascending price or second price auctions. We highlight the roles of asymmetries between bidders and of the multidimensional character of the private...

Motivated by the idea that lack of experience is a source of errors but that experience should reduce them, we model agents' behavior using a stochastic choice model, leaving endogenous the accuracy of their choice. In some games, increased accuracy is conducive to unstable best-response...

In dynamic environments, Q-learning is an adaptative rule that provides an estimate (a Q-value) of the continuation value associated with each alternative. A naive policy consists in always choosing the alternative with highest Q-value. We consider a family of Q-based policy rules that may...

Ascending auctions offer agents the option to wait and see before deciding to drop out. We show that in contexts where as time proceeds agents get finer and finer estimates of their valuations, incentives to drop out at one's expected valuation are weak: it is optimal for agents to wait and see....

This paper identifies a source of gradualism in bargaining andcontribution games. In the bargaining games we examine, each partycan opt out at any time, and the outside option outcome is assumed todepend on the offers made in the negotiation phase. Specifically, we assumethat (1) making a...

This paper examines repeated games in which each player observes a private and imperfect signal on the actions played and in which players are allowed to communicate using public messages. Providing incentives for players to reveal their observations generate revelation constraints which,...

The presence of obstinate types in bargaining has been shown to alter dramatically the bargaining equilibrium strategies and outcomes. This paper shows that outside options may cancel out the effect of obstinacy in bargaining. When parties have access to stationary outside options, we show that...