Theoretical Economics, Volume 9, Number 2 (May 2014)

Theoretical Economics 9 (2014), 409–434


Asynchronicity and coordination in common and opposing interest games

Riccardo Calcagno, Yuichiro Kamada, Stefano Lovo, Takuo Sugaya

Abstract


We study games endowed with a pre-play phase in which players prepare the actions that will be implemented at a predetermined deadline. In the preparation phase, each player stochastically receives opportunities to revise her actions, and the finally-revised action is taken at the deadline. In 2-player \textquotedblleft common interest" games, where there exists a best action profile for all players, this best action profile is the only equilibrium outcome of the dynamic game. In \textquotedblleft opposing interest" games, which are $2\times 2$ games with Pareto-unranked strict Nash equilibria, the equilibrium outcome of the dynamic game is generically unique and corresponds to one of the stage-game strict Nash equilibria. Which equilibrium prevails depends on the payoff structure and on the relative frequency of the arrivals of revision opportunities for each of the players.

Keywords: Revision games, pre-opening, finite horizon, equilibrium selection, asynchronous moves

JEL classification: C72, C73

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