Treating games of incomplete information with countable sets of actions and types and finite but large player sets we demonstrate that for every mixed strategy profile there is a pure strategy profile that is 'epsilon-equivalent'. Our framework introduces and exploits a distinction between crowding attributes of players (their external effects on others) and their taste attributes (their payoff functions and any other attributes that are not directly relevant to other players). The main assumption is a 'large game' property, dictating that the actions of relatively small subsets of players cannot have large effects on the payoffs of others Since it is well known that, even allowing mixed strategies, with a countable set of actions a Nash equilibrium may not exist, we provide an existence of equilibrium theorem. The proof of existence relies on a relationship between the 'better reply security' property of Reny (1999) and a stronger version of the large game property. Our purification theorem are based on a new mathematical result, of independent interest, applicable to countable strategy spaces.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University in its series Working Papers with number
0511.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: