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Sequential commitment games

Author

Listed:
  • Arieli, Itai
  • Babichenko, Yakov
  • Tennenholtz, Moshe

Abstract

We consider an extensive-form game in which players have the option to commit to actions before the game is played. We focus on commitment procedures where players make voluntary irreversible commitments in a prescribed order over the decision nodes. We study whether such commitment procedures may lead to Pareto-efficient outcomes. Our main result is surprisingly positive: for two-player games, we introduce an order over the decision nodes for which the unique subgame perfect equilibrium outcome is Pareto-efficient for every strict preference of the players over the outcomes. We show that the above result does not hold for games with four players.

Suggested Citation

  • Arieli, Itai & Babichenko, Yakov & Tennenholtz, Moshe, 2017. "Sequential commitment games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 297-315.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:105:y:2017:i:c:p:297-315
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.08.009
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Itai Arieli & Yakov Babichenko & Atulya Jain & Rann Smorodinsky, 2025. "Efficiency in Games with Incomplete Information," Papers 2510.12508, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2025.
    2. Halpern, Joseph Y. & Heller, Yuval & Winter, Eyal, 2025. "The benefits of coarse preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    3. Halpern, Joe & Heller, Yuval & Winter, Eyal, 2022. "The Benefits of Coarse Preferences," MPRA Paper 111670, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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