Bayesian Game Theorists and Non-Bayesian Players

Guilhem Lecouteux

No 2017-30, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: Bayesian game theorists claim to represent players as Bayes rational agents, maximising their expected utility given their beliefs about the choices of other players. I argue that this narrative is inconsistent with the formal structure of Bayesian game theory. This is because (i) the assumption of common belief in rationality is equivalent to equilibrium play, as in classical game theory, and (ii) the players' prior beliefs are a mere mathematical artefact and not actual beliefs held by the players. Bayesian game theory is thus a Bayesian representation of the choice of players who are committed to play equilibrium strategy profiles.

Keywords: Bayesianism; common belief in rationality; epistemic game theory; interactive epistemology; prior beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B21 C72 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2017-11, Revised 2018-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.gredeg.cnrs.fr/working-papers/GREDEG-WP-2017-30.pdf Revised version, 2018-07 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to www.gredeg.cnrs.fr:80 (A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.)

Related works:
Journal Article: Bayesian game theorists and non-Bayesian players (2018)
Working Paper: Bayesian Game Theorists and Non-Bayesian Players (2018)
Working Paper: Bayesian Game Theorists and non-Bayesian Players (2018)
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:gre:wpaper:2017-30

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrice Bougette ().