Failure of common knowledge of language in common-interest communication games

Andreas Blume

Games and Economic Behavior, 2018, vol. 109, issue C, 132-155

Abstract: This paper explores higher-order uncertainty about message availability in communication games with perfectly aligned preferences. It can be impossible to achieve ex post efficiency in equilibrium even when it is mutual knowledge that the size of the set of available messages would be sufficient to convey all payoff-relevant information. There are equilibria that achieve ex post efficiency whenever a rich language condition is satisfied: the set of available messages is large relative to the sender's assessment of the number of information sets of the sender the receiver considers possible. Weaker conditions suffice if one adopts an ex ante perspective.

Keywords: Communication; Language; Information transmission; Meaning; Common knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617302440
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:132-155

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.12.014

Access Statistics for this article

Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai

More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().