A Few Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: An Anti-folk Theorem for Anonymous Repeated Games with Incomplete Information

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2020
Volume: 110
Issue: 12
Pages: 3817-35

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study anonymous repeated games where players may be "commitment types" who always take the same action. We establish a stark anti-folk theorem: if the distribution of the number of commitment types satisfies a smoothness condition and the game has a "pairwise dominant" action, this action is almost always taken. This implies that cooperation is impossible in the repeated prisoner's dilemma with anonymous random matching. We also bound equilibrium payoffs for general games. Our bound implies that industry profits converge to zero in linear-demand Cournot oligopoly as the number of firms increases.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:12:p:3817-35
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29