Proper belief, revision and equilibrium in dynamic games

A. Perea ý Monsuwé*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We present a theory of rationality in dynamic games in which players, during the course of the game, may revise their beliefs about the opponents’ utility functions. The theory is based upon the following three principles: (1) the players’ initial beliefs about the opponents’ utilities should agree on some profile u of utility functions, (2) every player should believe, at each of his information sets, that his opponents are carrying out optimal strategies and (3) a player at information set h should not change his belief about an opponent's ranking of strategies aa and b if both a and b could have led to hh. Scenarios with these properties are called preference conjecture equilibria for the profile u of utility functions. We show that every normal form proper equilibrium for u induces a preference conjecture equilibrium for uu, thus implying existence of preference conjecture equilibrium.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)572-586
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Economic Theory
Volume136
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2007

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