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Public Monitoring with Uncertainty in the Time Repetitions

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  • Osório Costa, Antonio Miguel

Abstract

This paper study repeated games where the time repetitions of the stage game are not known or controlled by the players. We call this feature random monitoring. Kawamori's (2004) shows that perfect random monitoring is always better than the canonical case. Surprisingly, when the monitoring is public, the result is less clear-cut and does not generalize in a straightforward way. Unless the public signals are sufficiently informative about player's actions and/or players are patient enough. In addition to a discount effect, that tends to consistently favor the provision of incentives, we found an information effect, associated with the time uncertainty on the distribution of public signals. Whether payoff improvements are or not possible, depends crucially on the direction and strength of these effects. JEL: C73, D82, D86. KEYWORDS: Repeated Games, Frequent Monitoring, Random Public Monitoring, Moral Hazard, Stochastic Processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Osório Costa, Antonio Miguel, 2011. "Public Monitoring with Uncertainty in the Time Repetitions," Working Papers 2072/179668, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/179668
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yuliy Sannikov & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2007. "Impossibility of Collusion under Imperfect Monitoring with Flexible Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1794-1823, December.
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    5. Yuliy Sannikov & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2010. "The Role of Information in Repeated Games With Frequent Actions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 847-882, May.
    6. Kawamori, Tomohiko, 2004. "Uncertainty of time intervals and possibility of collusion in infinitely repeated games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 355-358, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teoria de jocs; 33 - Economia; 65 - Gestió i organització. Administració i direcció d'empreses. Publicitat. Relacions públiques. Mitjans de comunicació de masses;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

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