IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joecth/v80y2025i2d10.1007_s00199-024-01561-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uniformly strict equilibrium for repeated games with private monitoring and communication

Author

Listed:
  • Richard McLean

    (Rutgers University)

  • Ichiro Obara

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

  • Andrew Postlewaite

    (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

Cooperation through repetition is an important theme in game theory. In this regard, various celebrated “folk theorems” have been proposed for repeated games in increasingly more complex environments. There has, however, been insufficient attention paid to the robustness of a large set of equilibria that is needed for such folk theorems. Starting with perfect public equilibrium as our starting point, we study uniformly strict equilibria in repeated games with private monitoring and direct communication (cheap talk). We characterize the limit equilibrium payoff set and identify the conditions for the folk theorem to hold with uniformly strict equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard McLean & Ichiro Obara & Andrew Postlewaite, 2025. "Uniformly strict equilibrium for repeated games with private monitoring and communication," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 80(2), pages 493-514, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:80:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s00199-024-01561-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-024-01561-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-024-01561-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00199-024-01561-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mailath, George J. & Morris, Stephen, 2002. "Repeated Games with Almost-Public Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 189-228, 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. Bhaskar, V. & Obara, Ichiro, 2002. "Belief-Based Equilibria in the Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 40-69, January.
    4. Olivier Compte, 1998. "Communication in Repeated Games with Imperfect Private Monitoring," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 597-626, May.
    5. 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.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6102 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Tomala, Tristan, 2009. "Perfect communication equilibria in repeated games with imperfect monitoring," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 682-694, November.
    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. McLean, Richard & Obara, Ichiro & Postlewaite, Andrew, 2014. "Robustness of public equilibria in repeated games with private monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 191-212.
    2. Miyagawa, Eiichi & Miyahara, Yasuyuki & Sekiguchi, Tadashi, 2008. "The folk theorem for repeated games with observation costs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 192-221, March.
    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. , J. & ,, 2006. "Coordination failure in repeated games with almost-public monitoring," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(3), pages 311-340, September.
    5. Kandori, Michihiro, 2002. "Introduction to Repeated Games with Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Ashkenazi-Golan, Galit & Lehrer, Ehud, 2019. "What you get is what you see: Cooperation in repeated games with observable payoffs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 197-237.
    7. , H. & ,, 2016. "Approximate efficiency in repeated games with side-payments and correlated signals," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), January.
    8. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Effecting Cooperation," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-019, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 29 May 2009.
    9. Obara, Ichiro, 2009. "Folk theorem with communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 120-134, January.
    10. Yamamoto, Yuichi, 2012. "Characterizing belief-free review-strategy equilibrium payoffs under conditional independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1998-2027.
    11. Yamamoto, Yuichi, 2009. "A limit characterization of belief-free equilibrium payoffs in repeated games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 802-824, March.
    12. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 2008. "The Nash-threats folk theorem with communication and approximate common knowledge in two player games," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 15, pages 331-343, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Lee, Gea M., 2010. "Optimal collusion with internal contracting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 646-669, March.
    14. Heller, Yuval, 2017. "Instability of belief-free equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 261-286.
    15. Michihiro Kandori, 2011. "Weakly Belief‐Free Equilibria in Repeated Games With Private Monitoring," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 877-892, May.
    16. Heller, Yuval, 2015. "Instability of Equilibria with Imperfect Private Monitoring," MPRA Paper 64468, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. repec:pra:mprapa:64485 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Chen, Bo, 2010. "A belief-based approach to the repeated prisoners' dilemma with asymmetric private monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 402-420, January.
    19. Sekiguchi, Tadashi, 2002. "Existence of nontrivial equilibria in repeated games with imperfect private monitoring," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 299-321, August.
    20. Tristan Tomala, 2013. "Belief-Free Communication Equilibria in Repeated Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 617-637, November.
    21. Yamamoto, Yuichi, 2007. "Efficiency results in N player games with imperfect private monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 382-413, July.

    More about this item

    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
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:spr:joecth:v:80:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s00199-024-01561-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.