Plausible Cooperation, Third Version

43 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2013

See all articles by Olivier Compte

Olivier Compte

Paris School of Economics (PSE); Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech

Andrew Postlewaite

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics

Date Written: December 1, 2012

Abstract

There is a large repeated games literature illustrating how future interactions provide incentives for cooperation. Much of the earlier literature assumes public monitoring: players always observe precisely the same thing. Departures from public monitoring to private monitoring that incorporate differences in players’ observations may dramatically complicate coordination and the provision of incentives, with the consequence that equilibria with private monitoring often seem unrealistically complex. We set out a model in which players accomplish cooperation in an intuitively plausible fashion. Players process information via a mental system — a set of psychological states and a transition function between states depending on observations. Players restrict attention to a relatively small set of simple strategies, and consequently, might learn which perform well.

Keywords: repeated games, private monitoring, bounded rationality, cooperation

JEL Classification: D01, D70

Suggested Citation

Compte, Olivier and Postlewaite, Andrew, Plausible Cooperation, Third Version (December 1, 2012). PIER Working Paper No. 13-008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2212687 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2212687

Olivier Compte

Paris School of Economics (PSE) ( email )

48 Boulevard Jourdan
Paris, 75014
France

Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech ( email )

Cité Descartes, 8 Av. Blaise Pascal
Champs sur Marne, 77420
France

Andrew Postlewaite (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics ( email )

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science
133 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
United States
215-898-7350 (Phone)
215-573-2057 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.econ.upenn.edu/~apostlew

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