IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2503.03788.html

Kuhn's Theorem for Games of the Extensive Form with Unawareness

Author

Listed:
  • Ki Vin Foo
  • Burkhard C. Schipper

Abstract

We extend Kuhn's Theorem to games of the extensive form with unawareness. We prove that if a game of the extensive form with unawareness has perfect recall, then for each mixed strategy there is an equivalent behavior strategy. We show that the converse does not hold under unawareness without restricting the evolution of the player's awareness to constant awareness along paths of play. Both directions of Kuhn's Theorem for games of the extensive form with unawareness require a condition complementary to perfect recall that rules out falsely believing in some events when the player is unaware of the actual past events.

Suggested Citation

  • Ki Vin Foo & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2025. "Kuhn's Theorem for Games of the Extensive Form with Unawareness," Papers 2503.03788, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2503.03788
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.03788
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ritzberger, Klaus, 2002. "Foundations of Non-Cooperative Game Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199247868.
    2. Leandro Rêgo & Joseph Halpern, 2012. "Generalized solution concepts in games with possibly unaware players," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(1), pages 131-155, February.
    3. Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein, 1994. "A Course in Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650401, December.
    4. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Dynamic unawareness and rationalizable behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 50-68.
    5. Piccione, Michele & Rubinstein, Ariel, 1997. "On the Interpretation of Decision Problems with Imperfect Recall," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, July.
    6. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2021. "Discovery and equilibrium in games with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    7. Pearce, David G, 1984. "Rationalizable Strategic Behavior and the Problem of Perfection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 1029-1050, July.
    8. Dubey, Pradeep & Kaneko, Mamoru, 1985. "Information patterns and Nash equilibria in extensive games -- II," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 247-262, December.
    9. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel, 2012. "Incorporating unawareness into contract theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 181-194.
    10. Heifetz Aviad & Meier Martin & Schipper Burkhard C., 2021. "Prudent Rationalizability in Generalized Extensive-form Games with Unawareness," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 525-556, June.
    11. Kym Pram & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2025. "Efficient Mechanisms under Unawareness," Papers 2504.04382, arXiv.org.
    12. Simon Grant & John Quiggin, 2013. "Inductive reasoning about unawareness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(3), pages 717-755, November.
    13. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2006. "Interactive unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 78-94, September.
    14. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 145, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    15. Klaus Ritzberger, 1999. "Recall in extensive form games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 28(1), pages 69-87.
    16. Wichardt, Philipp C., 2008. "Existence of Nash equilibria in finite extensive form games with imperfect recall: A counterexample," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 366-369, May.
    17. Battigalli, Pierpaolo, 1997. "On Rationalizability in Extensive Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 40-61, May.
    18. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 153, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    19. Schipper, Burkhard C. & Woo, Hee Yeul, 2019. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 41-88, January.
    20. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & De Vito, Nicodemo, 2021. "Beliefs, plans, and perceived intentions in dynamic games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    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. Burkhard Schipper, 2017. "Kuhn's Theorem for Extensive Games with Unawareness," Working Papers 176, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    2. Burkhard Schipper, 2017. "Kuhn's Theorem for Extensive Games with Unawareness," Working Papers 204, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    3. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2021. "Discovery and equilibrium in games with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    4. Heifetz Aviad & Meier Martin & Schipper Burkhard C., 2021. "Prudent Rationalizability in Generalized Extensive-form Games with Unawareness," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 525-556, June.
    5. Martin Meier & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2022. "Conditional dominance in games with unawareness," Working Papers 351, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    6. Perea, Andrés, 2022. "Common belief in rationality in games with unawareness," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 11-30.
    7. Alejandro Francetich & Burkhard Schipper, 2025. "Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure under Unawareness," Working Papers 374, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Norimasa Kobayashi & Yasuo Sasaki, 2024. "Rationalizable self-confirming equilibrium in static games with unawareness," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 53(3), pages 765-790, September.
    9. Gaia Belardinelli & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2023. "Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures," Working Papers 360, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    10. Ying Xue Li & Burkhard Schipper, 2025. "Disclosure under Unawareness: An Experiment," Working Papers 370, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    11. Guarino, Pierfrancesco, 2020. "An epistemic analysis of dynamic games with unawareness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 257-288.
    12. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Dynamic unawareness and rationalizable behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 50-68.
    13. Sasaki, Yasuo, 2022. "Unawareness of decision criteria in multicriteria games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 31-40.
    14. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2014. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Working Papers 148, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    15. Schipper, Burkhard C. & Woo, Hee Yeul, 2019. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 41-88, January.
    16. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    17. Burkhard C. Schipper & Hang Zhou, 2022. "Level-k Thinking in the Extensive Form," Working Papers 352, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    18. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Generoso, Nicolò, 2024. "Information flows and memory in games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 356-376.
    19. Yasuo Sasaki, 2016. "An Equivalence Result on the Reduction of Games with Unawareness," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(03), pages 1-27, September.
    20. Andrés Perea & Elias Tsakas, 2019. "Limited focus in dynamic games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(2), pages 571-607, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:arx:papers:2503.03788. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.