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Forgiving-Proof Equilibrium in Infinitely Repeated Games

  • Miguel Aramendia , Luis Ruiz and Quan Wen
Published/Copyright: February 11, 2008
The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics
From the journal The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics Volume 8 Issue 1

In repeated games, equilibrium often requires that any deviation be punished in the continuation, regardless of whether it is beneficial to the other players. It seems against the nature of non-cooperative game theory for the other players to decide what to do based on what one player did, rather than on the well-being of themselves. We introduce a new solution concept called a forgiving-proof equilibrium that recommends continuing as if nothing had happened after a player deviates without harming the others. A folk theorem is established to characterize the set of forgiving-proof equilibrium payoffs when players are sufficiently patient. The concept of forgiving-proof equilibrium significantly reduces the set of equilibrium outcomes in many repeated games.

Keywords: infinitely repeated games; folk theorem
Published Online: 2008-2-11

©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1704.1440
Keywords for this article
infinitely repeated games; folk theorem

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Topics Article
  2. When Stackelberg and Cournot Equilibria Coincide
  3. Conflict and Consensus: A Theory of Control in Organisations
  4. Backward Integrated Information Gatekeepers and Independent Divisions in the Product Market
  5. Identification of Individual Demands from Market Data under Uncertainty
  6. On the Role of Uncertainty in the Risk-Incentives Tradeoff
  7. Time-to-Build and the Inverse U-Shape Investment-Uncertainty Relationship
  8. Revisiting Independence and Stochastic Dominance for Compound Lotteries
  9. On Competitive Equilibria with Asymmetric Information
  10. A Duopoly Location Toolkit: Consumer Densities Which Yield Unique Spatial Duopoly Equilibria
  11. Purchasing Power Parity with Strategic Markets
  12. Global vs. Local Information in (Anti-)Coordination Problems with Imitators
  13. Costly Evidence Production and the Limits of Verifiability
  14. Research Joint Ventures, Optimal Licensing, and the R&D Subsidy Policy
  15. Comparative Statics and Welfare in Heterogeneous All-Pay Auctions: Bribes, Caps, and Performance Thresholds
  16. Ex Post Private Information and Monopolistic Screening
  17. Passing the Buck in Sequential Negotiation
  18. Bidding Strategies for Simultaneous Ascending Auctions
  19. The Dirty Face Problem with Unawareness
  20. Cost Pass-Through under Delegation
  21. Contributions Article
  22. Empirical Implications of Information Structure in Finite Extensive Form Games
  23. Counter Marginalization of Information Rents: Implementing Negatively Correlated Compensation Schemes for Colluding Parties
  24. Forgiving-Proof Equilibrium in Infinitely Repeated Games
  25. A Categorical Model of Cognition and Biased Decision Making
  26. Mechanism Design with Moderate Evidence Cost
  27. Connectivity and Allocation Rule in a Directed Network
  28. Competing for Recognition through Public Good Provision
  29. Principal-Agent Problems with Exit Options
  30. Herd Behavior and Contagion in Financial Markets
  31. A Constructive Proof that Learning in Repeated Games Leads to Nash Equilibria
  32. Advances Article
  33. The Full Surplus Extraction Theorem with Hidden Actions
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