Learning in Games and in Market

人类与其他动物的区别之一是，人类具有通过观察和经验了解周围环境的强大能力。然而，令人惊讶的是，在经济建模和分析中，学习常常被忽略。这项研究包括四个相互关联的项目，关于“理性”人的学习方式。这项研究的最终目标是引入对玩家在游戏过程中“不平衡”行为的新解释：也就是说，这种令人困惑的行为是旨在帮助玩家学习对手使用的策略的“实验”。通过严格推断经济主体不断了解其对手及其环境这一假设的含义，这项研究有可能极大地扩展经济理论的应用范围，并提高其预测能力。第一个项目着眼于消费者的选择，他们试图利用朋友和邻居的经验来选择不同质量的商品。第二个项目分析的模型是，玩家试图通过反复观察来了解对手的策略，而无需与对手进行任何其他交流。目标是找到在各种战略环境中表现良好的学习规则。第三个项目是关于所谓的“信号游戏”中学习的效果。在这些游戏中，玩家拥有关于环境的私人信息，而这些信息无法独立验证。因此，“空谈是廉价的”。玩家向其他玩家传达信息的唯一方式就是采取代价高昂的行动来“揭示”他们所拥有的信息。在信号博弈中，存在许多均衡，其中一些似乎难以置信。该研究考察了如果玩家在游戏过程中进行“实验”以了解对手的策略，那么哪种均衡可能会出现。最后一个项目考察了耐用品垄断者在耐用品随时间变化时的定价。例如计算机硬件和软件以及汽车。

SBR-9424013 Drew Fudenberg One of the things that separates human beings from other animals is their great capacity to learn about their environment through observation and experience. Yet, surprisingly, learning is often ignored in economic modeling and analysis. This research consists of four interrelated projects about the way "rational" people learn. The ultimate goal of this research is to introduce a new interpretation of "out-of-equilibrium" actions by a player in the course of a game: namely, that such puzzling actions are "experiments" designed to help the player learn the strategies being used by its opponents. By rigorously inferring the implications of the assumption that economic agents are constantly learning about their opponents and their environment this research has the potential to greatly extend the range of application of economic theory as well as increase its predictive ability. The first project looks at the choices made by consumers who try to use the experiences of friends and neighbors to choose among goods of differing quality. The second project analyzes models in which players try to learn of their opponents' strategies through repeated observation without the benefit of any other communication with them. The goal is to find learning rules that will perform well in a wide variety of strategic environments. The third project concerns the effect of learning in so-called "signaling games". These games consist of situations in which players have private information about the environment that cannot be independently verified. As a result, "talk is cheap." The only way players can communicate their information to other players is by taking costly actions that will "reveal" the information they possess. In signaling games, there are many equilibria, some of which seem implausible. The research examines which equilibria are likely to arise if players conduct "experiments" during the course of play to learn about their opponent's strategies. The last projec t examines the pricing of by a durable good monopolist when the good changes over time. Examples are computer hardware and software and automobiles.