IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v100y2010i1p448-65.html

Building Routines: Learning, Cooperation, and the Dynamics of Incomplete Relational Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Sylvain Chassang

Abstract

This paper studies how agents with conflicting interests learn to cooperate when the details of cooperation are not common knowledge. It considers a repeated game in which one player has incomplete information about when and how her partner can provide benefits. Initially, monitoring is imperfect and cooperation requires inefficient punishment. As the players' common history grows, the uninformed player can learn to monitor her partner's actions, which allows players to establish more efficient cooperative routines. Because revealing information is costly, it may be optimal not to reveal all the existing information, and efficient equilibria can be path-dependent. (JEL C73, D82, D83, D86)

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvain Chassang, 2010. "Building Routines: Learning, Cooperation, and the Dynamics of Incomplete Relational Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 448-465, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:100:y:2010:i:1:p:448-65
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.100.1.448
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.1.448
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/mar2010/20080226_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Baker & Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 2002. "Relational Contracts and the Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 39-84.
    2. Clive Bull, 1987. "The Existence of Self-Enforcing Implicit Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(1), pages 147-159.
    3. Watson, Joel, 2002. "Starting Small and Commitment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 176-199, January.
    4. Sergiu Hart, 1985. "Nonzero-Sum Two-Person Repeated Games with Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 117-153, February.
    5. Blume, Andreas & Franco, April Mitchell, 2007. "Decentralized learning from failure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 504-523, March.
    6. repec:cor:louvrp:-636 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    8. Crawford, Vincent P & Haller, Hans, 1990. "Learning How to Cooperate: Optimal Play in Repeated Coordination Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 571-595, May.
    9. Gossner, Olivier & Vieille, Nicolas, 2003. "Strategic learning in games with symmetric information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 25-47, January.
    10. Sidney G. Winter, 1971. "Satisficing, Selection, and the Innovating Remnant," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 85(2), pages 237-261.
    11. Martin W. Cripps & Jonathan P. Thomas, 2003. "Some Asymptotic Results in Discounted Repeated Games of One-Sided Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 433-462, August.
    12. Shalev Jonathan, 1994. "Nonzero-Sum Two-Person Repeated Games with Incomplete Information and Known-Own Payoffs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 246-259, September.
    13. Ricardo Alonso & Niko Matouschek, 2007. "Relational delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 1070-1089, December.
    14. Susan Athey & Kyle Bagwell & Chris Sanchirico, 2004. "Collusion and Price Rigidity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 317-349.
    15. Rothschild, Michael, 1974. "A two-armed bandit theory of market pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 185-202, October.
    16. Abreu, Dilip & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1990. "Toward a Theory of Discounted Repeated Games with Imperfect Monitoring," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1041-1063, September.
    17. Thomas Wiseman, 2005. "A Partial Folk Theorem for Games with Unknown Payoff Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 629-645, March.
    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. Tristan Tomala, 2013. "Belief-Free Communication Equilibria in Repeated Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 617-637, November.
    2. Fudenberg, Drew & Yamamoto, Yuichi, 2011. "Learning from private information in noisy repeated games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 1733-1769, September.
    3. Andreas Blume & April Mitchell Franco & Paul Heidhues, 2021. "Dynamic coordination via organizational routines," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1001-1047, November.
    4. Samuelson, Larry & Stacchetti, Ennio, 2017. "Even up: Maintaining relationships," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 170-217.
    5. Robert Gibbons, 2010. "Inside Organizations: Pricing, Politics, and Path Dependence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 337-365, September.
    6. Andreas Blume, 2011. "Dynamic Coordination Via Organizational Routines," Working Paper 439, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2011.
    7. Hua, Xiameng & Watson, Joel, 2022. "Starting small in project choice: A discrete-time setting with a continuum of types," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    8. Yuichi Yamamoto, 2013. "Individual Learning and Cooperation in Noisy Repeated Games," PIER Working Paper Archive 13-038, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    9. Takuo Sugaya & Yuichi Yamamoto, 2019. "Common Learning and Cooperation in Repeated Games," PIER Working Paper Archive 19-008, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    10. Jullien, Bruno & Park, In-Uck, 2019. "Communication, Feedbacks and Repeated Moral Hazard with Short-lived Buyers," TSE Working Papers 19-1027, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Apr 2020.
    11. Yuichi Yamamoto, 2012. "Individual Learning and Cooperation in Noisy Repeated Games," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-044, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    12. Harry Pei, 2020. "Trust and Betrayals: Reputational Payoffs and Behaviors without Commitment," Papers 2006.08071, arXiv.org.
    13. Marina Halac & Pierre Yared, 2017. "Fiscal Rules and Discretion under Self-Enforcement," NBER Working Papers 23919, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Salomon, Antoine & Forges, Françoise, 2015. "Bayesian repeated games and reputation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 70-104.
    15. Kartal, Melis & Müller, Wieland & Tremewan, James, 2021. "Building trust: The costs and benefits of gradualism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 258-275.
    16. Bart S. Vanneste & Douglas H. Frank, 2014. "Forgiveness in Vertical Relationships: Incentive and Termination Effects," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1807-1822, December.
    17. Zhao, Rui R., 2012. "Renegotiation and conflict resolution in relational contracting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 964-983.
    18. Andreas Blume & April Franco & Paul Heidhues, 2006. "Rational Multi-Agent Search," 2006 Meeting Papers 776, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Hörner, Johannes & Lovo, Stefano & Tomala, Tristan, 2011. "Belief-free equilibria in games with incomplete information: Characterization and existence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 1770-1795, September.
    20. Kalai, Ehud & Lehrer, Ehud, 1995. "Subjective games and equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 123-163.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

    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:aea:aecrev:v:100:y:2010:i:1:p:448-65. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.