It is known that there are uncoupled learning heuristics leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games. Why should players use such learning heuristics and where could they come from? We show that there is no uncoupled learning heuristic leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games that a...

It is known that there are uncoupled learning heuristics leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games. Why should players use such learning heuristics and where could they come from? We show that there is no uncoupled learning heuristic leading to Nash equilibrium in all finite games that a...

A learning rule is uncoupled if a player does not condition his strategy on the opponent's payoffs. It is radically uncoupled if a player does not condition his strategy on the opponent's actions or payoffs. We demonstrate a family of simple, radically uncoupled learning rules whose...

Smith (1995) presented a necessary and sufficient condition for the finite- horizon perfect folk theorem. In the proof of this result, the author constructed a family of five-phase strategy profiles to approach feasible and individually rational payoff vec- tors of the stage-game. These strategy...

I analyze the set of pure strategy subgame perfect Nash equilibria of any finitely repeated game with complete information and perfect monitoring. The main result is a complete characterization of the limit set, as the time horizon increases, of the set of pure strategy subgame perfect Nash...

We study two-player discounted repeated games in which one player cannot monitor the other unless he pays a fixed amount. It is well known that in such a model the folk theorem holds when the monitoring cost is on the order of magnitude of the stage payoff. We analyze high frequency games in...

We report experiments designed to test between Nash equilibria that are stable and unstable under learning. The “TASP” (Time Average of the Shapley Polygon) gives a precise prediction about what happens when there is divergence from equilibrium under fictitious play like learning processes....

In a coordination game such as the Battle of the Sexes, agents can condition their plays on external signals that can, in theory, lead to a Correlated Equilibrium that can improve the overall payoffs of the agents. Here we explore whether boundedly rational, adaptive agents can learn to...

Mixed Nash equilibria are a cornerstone of game theory, but their empirical relevance has always been controversial. We study in the laboratory two games whose unique NE is in completely mixed strategies; other treatments include the matching protocol (pairwise random vs population...

We study models of learning in games where agents with limited memory use social information to decide when and how to change their play. When agents only observe the aggregate distribution of payoffs and only recall information from the last period, aggregate play comes close to Nash...