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Failure of gradualism under imperfect monitoring

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  • Guéron, Yves

Abstract

We consider a two-player Prisoner's Dilemma type game with continuous actions, where players choose how much to contribute to a public project. This game is played infinitely many times and actions are irreversible: players cannot decrease their actions over time. While it is strictly dominant for players not to contribute in the stage game, some strictly positive level of contribution is Pareto optimal. It is known that when players perfectly observe each other's actions, cooperation can be achieved through gradual increases in contribution levels. I show that introducing an arbitrarily small amount of smooth noise in the monitoring makes cooperation impossible and players play the static Nash equilibrium of the stage-game forever.

Suggested Citation

  • Guéron, Yves, 2015. "Failure of gradualism under imperfect monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 128-145.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:157:y:2015:i:c:p:128-145
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.01.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Leslie M. Marx & Steven A. Matthews, 2000. "Dynamic Voluntary Contribution to a Public Project," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(2), pages 327-358.
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    Cited by:

    1. Eungik Lee & Andrew Choi & Syngjoo Choi & Yves Guéron, 2023. "Irreversibility And Monitoring In Dynamic Games: Experimental Evidence," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(1), pages 387-412, February.
    2. Chen, Yi, 2020. "A revision game of experimentation on a common threshold," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monotone games; Voluntary contributions; Gradualism; Irreversibility; Imperfect monitoring; Cooperation breakdown;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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