IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nea/journl/y2017i34p181-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In Search of a Generalized Concept of Rationality

Author

Listed:
  • Iskakov, A.

    (V.A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences RAS, Moscow, Russia)

  • Iskakov, M.

    (V.A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences RAS, Moscow, Russia)

Abstract

The paper recapitulates basic problems that arise in the game-theoretic models, when traditional assumptions about the rationality of players are violated. Some examples of bounded rationality models describing the strategic interdependence of players are provided. In particular we consider the theories of oligopolistic behavior, the models of bounded strategic thinking, equilibrium in secure strategies and equilibria contained by counter-threats. We discuss the ways to reconcile the traditional and boundedly rational approaches. We briefly review the main strands of modern game theory aimed at developing a generalized concept of rationality, which would incorporate strategic interaction and farsighted strategic thinking of players. Promising directions include interactive epistemology, learning theory and evolutionary models.

Suggested Citation

  • Iskakov, A. & Iskakov, M., 2017. "In Search of a Generalized Concept of Rationality," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 181-189.
    • Handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2017:i:34:p:181-189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2017-34-181-189r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Müller, W. & Normann, H.T., 2003. "Conjectural Variations and Evolutionary Stability : A New Rationale for Consistency," Other publications TiSEM af576ec2-1637-4390-8b59-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1987. "A theory of dynamic oligopoly, III : Cournot competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 947-968, June.
    3. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    4. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    5. Noritsugu Nakanishi, 2009. "Noncooperative farsighted stable set in an n-player prisoners’ dilemma," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(2), pages 249-261, June.
    6. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    7. Robert Aumann & Adam Brandenburger, 2014. "Epistemic Conditions for Nash Equilibrium," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Language of Game Theory Putting Epistemics into the Mathematics of Games, chapter 5, pages 113-136, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. iskakov, Mikhail & ISKAKOV, Alexey, 2012. "Equilibrium in secure strategies," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012061, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Abreu, Dilip & Dutta, Prajit K & Smith, Lones, 1994. "The Folk Theorem for Repeated Games: A NEU Condition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 939-948, July.
    10. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1984. "Rationalizable Strategic Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 1007-1028, July.
    11. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    12. R. M. Harstad & R. Selten, 2014. "Bounded-rationality models:tasks to become intellectually competitive," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 5.
    13. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 27-41.
    14. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, December.
    15. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    16. Kawagoe, Toshiji & Takizawa, Hirokazu, 2009. "Equilibrium refinement vs. level-k analysis: An experimental study of cheap-talk games with private information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 238-255, May.
    17. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    18. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    19. Pearce, David G, 1984. "Rationalizable Strategic Behavior and the Problem of Perfection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 1029-1050, July.
    20. John C. Harsanyi, 1974. "An Equilibrium-Point Interpretation of Stable Sets and a Proposed Alternative Definition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(11), pages 1472-1495, July.
    21. Shapiro, Carl, 1989. "Theories of oligopoly behavior," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 329-414, Elsevier.
    22. Makowski, Louis, 1987. "Are 'Rational Conjectures' Rational?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 35-47, September.
    23. Marina S. Sandomirskaia, 2015. "Price-Quantity Competition of Farsighted Firms: Toughness vs. Collusion," HSE Working papers WP BRP 93/EC/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    24. Colin F. Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin-Kuan Chong, 2004. "A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 861-898.
    25. Bresnahan, Timothy F, 1981. "Duopoly Models with Consistent Conjectures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 934-945, December.
    26. R. M. Cyert & M. H. DeGroot, 1970. "Multiperiod Decision Models with Alternating Choice as a Solution to the Duopoly Problem," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 410-429.
    27. Wieland Müller & Hans-Theo Normann, 2005. "Conjectural Variations and Evolutionary Stability: A Rationale for Consistency," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(3), pages 491-502, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Iskakov, M., 2022. "Existence theorems for Nash equilibrium and equilibrium in secure strategies," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 12-27.

    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. Victor Aguirregabiria & Jihye Jeon, 2020. "Firms’ Beliefs and Learning: Models, Identification, and Empirical Evidence," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(2), pages 203-235, March.
    2. Matthew McGinty, 2021. "Rational conjectures and evolutionary beliefs in public goods games," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(6), pages 1130-1143, December.
    3. Ellingsen, Tore & Östling, Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2018. "How does communication affect beliefs in one-shot games with complete information?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-181.
    4. Choo, Lawrence C.Y & Kaplan, Todd R., 2014. "Explaining Behavior in the "11-20" Game," MPRA Paper 52808, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2001. "Ten Little Treasures of Game Theory and Ten Intuitive Contradictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1402-1422, December.
    6. Nagel, Rosemarie & Bühren, Christoph & Frank, Björn, 2017. "Inspired and inspiring: Hervé Moulin and the discovery of the beauty contest game," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 191-207.
    7. Breitmoser, Yves & Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2014. "On the beliefs off the path: Equilibrium refinement due to quantal response and level-k," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 102-125.
    8. Geir B. Asheim & Mark Voorneveld & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2016. "Epistemically Robust Strategy Subsets," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-16, November.
    9. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2009. "Dynamic psychological games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 1-35, January.
    10. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Perez-Richet, Eduardo, 2018. "Communication with evidence in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 139-165.
    11. van Damme, E.E.C., 2000. "Non-cooperative Games," Other publications TiSEM 51465233-a356-4d20-acc4-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. van Damme, E.E.C., 2015. "Game theory : Noncooperative games," Other publications TiSEM ff518f2b-501f-4d99-817b-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    14. Dufwenberg, Martin & Van Essen, Matt, 2018. "King of the Hill: Giving backward induction its best shot," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 125-138.
    15. Minozzi, William & Woon, Jonathan, 2016. "Competition, preference uncertainty, and jamming: A strategic communication experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 97-114.
    16. Crawford, Vincent P., 2017. "Let׳s talk it over: Coordination via preplay communication with level-k thinking," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 20-31.
    17. Marina S. Sandomirskaia, 2015. "Price-Quantity Competition of Farsighted Firms: Toughness vs. Collusion," HSE Working papers WP BRP 93/EC/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    18. Geir B. Asheim & Mark Voorneveld & Jörgen Weibull, 2009. "Epistemically stable strategy sets," Working Papers hal-00440098, HAL.
    19. Antonio Doria, Francisco, 2011. "J.B. Rosser Jr. , Handbook of Research on Complexity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK--Northampton, MA, USA (2009) 436 + viii pp., index, ISBN 978 1 84542 089 5 (cased)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 196-204, April.
    20. Lupia, Arthur & Levine, Adam Seth & Zharinova, Natasha, 2010. "When Should Political Scientists Use the Self-Confirming Equilibrium Concept? Benefits, Costs, and an Application to Jury Theorems," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 103-123, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    rationality; bounded rationality; strategic interdependence; farsightedness; strategic thinking; interactive epistemology; learning theory; evolutionary models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:nea:journl:y:2017:i:34:p:181-189. 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: Alexey Tcharykov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nearuea.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.