IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v43y1999i5p626-645.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavioral Issues of Rationality in International Interaction

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine C. Langlois

    (McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University)

  • Jean-Pierre P. Langlois

    (Department of Mathematics, San Francisco State University)

Abstract

This study argues for a behavioral interpretation of rational choice in a changing environment that potentially restores the equilibria of discounted repeated games as useful descriptors of long-term bilateral relations between nation-states. The analysis reveals that all subgame perfect equilibrium strategies fall into one of three classes: countervailing, strongly inducive, or weakly inducive. Only strongly inducive strategies require knowledge of the opponent's exact strategy choice to achieve equilibrium. At the other extreme, countervailing strategies require only the expectation of some form of countervailing behavior from the opponent to become a rational choice. The intermediate weakly inducive strategies allow each side to choose some bound of tolerance for the opponent's actual behavior, permitting a range of countervailing behaviors within these bounds. The formal analysis provides constructive access to interesting subgame perfect equilibria of discounted repeated games and is suggestive of the observable and empirically testable consequences of rational behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine C. Langlois & Jean-Pierre P. Langlois, 1999. "Behavioral Issues of Rationality in International Interaction," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(5), pages 626-645, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:43:y:1999:i:5:p:626-645
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002799043005005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002799043005005
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002799043005005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    2. Abreu, Dilip, 1988. "On the Theory of Infinitely Repeated Games with Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 383-396, March.
    3. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Walter Isard & Charles H. Anderton, 1985. "Arms Race Models: A Survey and Synthesis," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 8(2), pages 27-98, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xue, Licun, 2002. "Stable agreements in infinitely repeated games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 165-176, March.
    2. Kimmo Berg & Gijs Schoenmakers, 2017. "Construction of Subgame-Perfect Mixed-Strategy Equilibria in Repeated Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Mehmet Barlo & Guilherme Carmona, 2007. "One - memory in repeated games," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp500, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    4. Minzyuk, Larysa, 2010. "The development of non-monetary means of payment," MPRA Paper 28167, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2010.
    5. Shirley Ho, 2007. "An Economic Analysis Of Military Intelligence," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 485-493.
    6. Duncan, Roderick, 2006. "Costs and consequences of the expropriation of FDI by host governments," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139524, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    7. Yutaka Kayaba & Hitoshi Matsushima & Tomohisa Toyama, 2017. "Accuracy and Retaliation in Repeated Games with Imperfect Private Monitoring: Experiments and Theory (Revised version of F-381)," CARF F-Series CARF-F-414, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    8. Labrecciosa Paola & Colombo Luca, 2010. "Technology Uncertainty and Market Collusion," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2005. "Managerial incentives and collusive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1501-1523, August.
    10. Kimmo Berg & Mitri Kitti, 2014. "Equilibrium Paths in Discounted Supergames," Discussion Papers 96, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    11. Stefan Buehler & Dennis L. Gärtner, 2013. "Making Sense of Nonbinding Retail-Price Recommendations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 335-359, February.
    12. Mason, Charles F. & Polasky, Stephen & Tarui, Nori, 2017. "Cooperation on climate-change mitigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 43-55.
    13. Pablo Hernandez-Lagos & Dylan Minor & Dana Sisak, 2017. "Do people who care about others cooperate more? Experimental evidence from relative incentive pay," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 809-835, December.
    14. Günther, Michael & Hellmann, Tim, 2015. "Local and Global Pollution and International Environmental Agreements in a Network Approach," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 545, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    15. Sekiguchi, Tadashi, 1997. "Efficiency in Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 345-361, October.
    16. George J. Mailath & : Wojciech Olszewski, 2008. "Folk Theorems with Bounded Recall under (Almost) Perfect Monitoring, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 08-027, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 28 Jul 2008.
    17. Chade, Hector & Prokopovych, Pavlo & Smith, Lones, 2008. "Repeated games with present-biased preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 157-175, March.
    18. Stähler, Frank & Wagner, Friedrich, 1998. "Cooperation in a resource extraction game," Kiel Working Papers 846, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Aramendia, Miguel, 2006. "Asymmetric finite punishments in repeated games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 234-239, August.
    20. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:43:y:1999:i:5:p:626-645. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.