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Belief-Based Equilibria in the Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Private Monitoring

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  • V. Bhaskar
  • Ichiro Obara

Abstract

We analyze the infinitely repeated prisoners' dilemma with imperfect private monitoring and discounting. The main contribution of this paper is to construct ``belief-based'' strategies, where a player's continuation strategy is a function only of his beliefs. This simplifies the analysis considerably, and allows us to explicitly construct sequential equilibria for such games, thus enabling us to invoke the one-step deviation principle of dynamic programming. By doing so, we prove that one can approximate the efficient payoff in any prisoners' dilemma game provided that the monitoring is sufficiently accurate. Furthermore, for a class of prisoners' dilemma games, one can approximate every individually rational feasible payoff. These results require that monitoring be sufficiently accurate, but only require a uniform lower bound on the discount rate.
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  • V. Bhaskar & Ichiro Obara, "undated". "Belief-Based Equilibria in the Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Private Monitoring," Penn CARESS Working Papers d93eb6f40c65728f9e1a7b114, Penn Economics Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:penntw:d93eb6f40c65728f9e1a7b11423f1641
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    File URL: http://www.econ.upenn.edu/Centers/CARESS/CARESSpdf/00-16.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhaskar, V. & van Damme, Eric, 2002. "Moral Hazard and Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 16-39, January.
    2. Ely, Jeffrey C. & Valimaki, Juuso, 2002. "A Robust Folk Theorem for the Prisoner's Dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 84-105, January.
    3. Mailath, George J. & Morris, Stephen, 2002. "Repeated Games with Almost-Public Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 189-228, January.
    4. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1991. "On the theory of repeated games with private information : Part I: anti-folk theorem without communication," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 253-256, March.
    5. Ichiro Obara, "undated". "The Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with Private Monitoring: a N-player case," Penn CARESS Working Papers ba7f35f1c50de4503e241d127, Penn Economics Department.
    6. V. Bhaskar, 1998. "Informational Constraints and the Overlapping Generations Model: Folk and Anti-Folk Theorems," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 65(1), pages 135-149.
    7. Drew Fudenberg & David Levine & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem With Imperfect Public Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 12, pages 231-273, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Sekiguchi, Tadashi, 1997. "Efficiency in Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 345-361, October.
    9. George J. Mailath & Stephen Morris, "undated". ""Repeated Games with Imperfect Private Monitoring: Notes on a Coordination Perspective''," CARESS Working Papres 98-07, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    10. Piccione, Michele, 2002. "The Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with Imperfect Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 70-83, January.
    11. Glenn Ellison, 1994. "Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 567-588.
    12. Olivier Compte, 1998. "Communication in Repeated Games with Imperfect Private Monitoring," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 597-626, May.
    13. Compte, Olivier, 2002. "On Failing to Cooperate When Monitoring Is Private," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 151-188, January.
    14. Ichiro Obara, 2000. "Private Strategy and Efficiency: Repeated Partnership Games Revisited," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1449, Econometric Society.
    15. Michihiro Kandori & Hitoshi Matsushima, 1998. "Private Observation, Communication and Collusion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 627-652, May.
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