A key obstacle to coordination and cooperation in many networked environments is that behavior in each bilateral relationship is not observable to individuals outside that relationship: that is, information is local. This paper investigates when players can use communication to replicate any...

In persuasion problems where the receiver's action is one-dimensional and his utility is single-peaked, optimal signals are characterized by duality, based on a first-order approach to the receiver's problem. A signal is optimal if and only if the induced joint distribution over states and...

We study large-population repeated games where players are symmetric but not anonymous, so player-specific rewards and punishments are feasible. Players may be commitment types who always take the same action. Even though players are not anonymous, we show that an anti-folk theorem holds when...

Building on theories of international relations, we analyze how mistrust (uncertainty about an adversary's preferences or capabilities), misperception (imperfect observation of an adversary's actions), and misunderstanding (non-degenerate higher-order beliefs) can lead to conflict and drive its...