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Discovery and equilibrium in games with unawareness

Burkhard Schipper

Journal of Economic Theory, 2021, vol. 198, issue C

Abstract: Equilibrium notions for games with unawareness in the literature cannot be interpreted as steady-states of a learning process because players may discover novel actions during play. In this sense, many games with unawareness are “self-destroying” as a player's representation of the game may change after playing it once. We define discovery processes where at each state there is an extensive-form game with unawareness that together with the players' play determines the transition to possibly another extensive-form game with unawareness in which players are now aware of actions that they have discovered. A discovery process is rationalizable if players play extensive-form rationalizable strategies in each game with unawareness. We show that for any game with unawareness there is a rationalizable discovery process that leads to a self-confirming game that possesses a self-confirming equilibrium in extensive-form rationalizable conjectures. This notion of equilibrium can be interpreted as a steady-state of both a discovery and learning process.

Keywords: Self-confirming equilibrium; Conjectural equilibrium; Extensive-form rationalizability; Unawareness; Extensive-form games; Learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Discovery and Equilibrium in Games with Unawareness (2021) Downloads
Working Paper: Discovery and Equilibrium in Games with Unawareness (2018) Downloads
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121001824

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105365

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