Approaches to Communications in Games

直觉和经验表明，个人使用语言来解决战略问题，但非合作博弈论中使用的主要解决方案概念纳什均衡并没有提供一个合理的框架，在其中可以进行有意义的交流。这个项目的主要目标是严格定义玩家将在哪里使用沟通来实现更有效的结果，以及在哪里沟通将无法改善结果。该项目调查了这样一种想法，即如果沟通是可能的，那么沟通的方法就会发展，并防止参与者扮演低效均衡。这项研究使用了进化稳定策略的概念。它超越了早期的工作，因为它没有假设语言具有焦点意义，而是允许单词的意义作为进化稳定平衡的一部分而出现。进化稳定的策略在许多游戏中都不存在。该项目探索了进化稳定平衡的替代定义，这些定义可信地捕捉到了具有通信的演化的非合作系统的动态。研究了代理人具有私人信息的博弈中的通信结果。提出了一种新的信令博弈通用模型。这个项目开发了一个一般框架，用于严格分析沟通影响不完全信息理性经济主体之间讨价还价的方式。这一结果应该会为人们对一系列重要的经济问题提供新的见解。这项工作扩展了研究者先前对寡头垄断理论、税收政策、组织设计和诉讼的研究。进化稳定平衡的替代一般概念的发展最终可能被证明对数学生物学有用。对语言演化的研究可以为语言学做出贡献。

Intuition and experience indicate that individuals use language to solve strategic problems, but the Nash equilibrium, the principal solution concept used in non-cooperative game theory, does not provide a sensible framework in which meaningful communication can arise. The principal goal of this project is to rigorously define where players will use communication to arrive at more efficient outcomes and where communication will fail to improve the outcome. The project investigates the idea that if communication is possible, then methods of communication evolve and prevent players from playing inefficient equilibria. The study uses the concept of evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS). It goes beyond earlier work because it does not assume that language has a focal meaning but allows the meaning of words to arise as part of an evolutionarily stable equilibrium. Evolutionarily stable strategies fail to exist in many games. The project explores alternative definitions of evolutionarily stable equilibria that plausibly capture the dynamics of evolving non-cooperative systems with communication. The outcomes of communication in games in which agents have private information are studied. A new general model of signalling games is developed. This project develops a general framework for rigorously analyzing the way communication influences bargaining among rational economic agents with incomplete information. The results should provide new insights into a wide range of important economic problems. This work extends previous research by the investigator on oligopoly theory, tax policy, organizational design and litigation. The development of alternative general concepts of evolutionarily stable equilibrium could prove useful eventually to mathematical biology. The research on the evolution of language could make a contribution to linguistics.