Collaborative Research: Robust Predictions In Games With Private Information

合作研究：使用私人信息对游戏进行稳健预测

• 批准号: 0850718
• 负责人: Stephen Morris
• 金额: $ 23.33万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-04-15 至 2013-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0850718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Robust; Predictions; Games

In many economic environments the participants do not have the same informationabout the relevant aspects of their situation. For example, in a financial market eachinvestor may have different pieces of information about the underlying value of an assetor a company. In product markets, each competiting firm may have private informationabout its cost structure. In auctions, such as the wireless spectrum auctions organizedby the Federal Communications Commission or the offshore oil tracts auctioned off bythe U.S. Department of the Interior, the bidders have private information about theirvaluations and also some, possibly noisy, information about the valuations of theircompetitors.The private information of an agent, whether it is about his/her own valuations or thevaluations of the competing agents will determine the behavior and the strategy of theagent. But in practice, the theoretical and/or empirical analysts do not have a clearunderstanding of what the economic agents know and, in particular, what they do or donot know about each other. The missing and incomplete information si also highlyrelevant from a policy perspective as the supervising or regulatory authority in manymarkets face similar informational constraints.The PIs develop methods that allow predictions about the behavior of economic agentsand the reulting market allocations in such settings. These predictions are robust to alarge class of private information structures by the agents. They identify conditions onthe nature of the interaction and the market under which it is possible to make uniquepredictions about economic behavior. When these conditions are not met, the PIsestablish robust bounds on the distribution of possible economic outcomes, especiallythe mean and the variance of the outcomes. They use these bounds to predict thewelfare impact of information sharing in markets. They also use the bounds to designrobust mechanisms, such as auction and voting methods, that perform well in manyinformation environments.This project provides an economic theory that can lead to practical solutions to marketand mechanism design problems. It also provides a theoretical foundation for futurework in econometrics aimed at testing models in situations where the researcher doesnot know the market's information structure.This research will have broader impacts for the many different areas of social sciencethat use game theory as a fundamental tool. In addition, the project has directimplications for antitrust policy, since whether or not to allow sellers to share informationis a question for price-fixing policy.

在许多经济环境中，参与者并不拥有关于其状况相关方面的相同信息。例如，在金融市场中，每个投资者可能对资产或公司的潜在价值有不同的信息。在产品市场中，每个竞争企业都可能拥有关于其成本结构的私人信息。在拍卖中，例如由联邦通信委员会组织的无线频谱拍卖或由美国内政部拍卖的海上石油区块，投标人拥有关于其估价的私人信息，以及关于其竞争对手估价的一些可能是嘈杂的信息。代理人的私人信息，无论是关于他/她自己的估价还是竞争代理人的估价都将决定代理人的行为和策略。但在实践中，理论和/或经验分析师并没有清楚地了解经济主体知道什么，特别是他们知道或不知道对方。从政策的角度来看，缺失和不完整的信息也是高度相关的，因为许多市场的监督或监管机构都面临着类似的信息约束。PI开发了一些方法，可以预测经济主体的行为和在这种环境下的市场分配。这些预测是强大的，由代理商的私人信息结构的大类。他们确定的相互作用的性质和市场的条件下，有可能作出独特的预测经济行为。当这些条件不满足时，PI为可能的经济结果的分布，特别是结果的均值和方差建立了鲁棒的界限。他们使用这些界限来预测市场中信息共享的福利影响。他们还使用边界来设计鲁棒的机制，如拍卖和投票方法，在许多信息环境中表现良好。这个项目提供了一个经济理论，可以导致市场和机制设计问题的实际解决方案。它也为计量经济学的未来研究提供了理论基础，目的是在研究者不知道市场信息结构的情况下检验模型。这项研究将对使用博弈论作为基本工具的社会科学的许多不同领域产生更广泛的影响。此外，该项目对反垄断政策有直接影响，因为是否允许卖方分享信息是价格固定政策的问题。