Research on Strategic Uncertainty: Applications

了解个人或群体如何互动是几乎所有经济和社会问题的核心。研究这种互动的一个核心困难是，在实践中，玩家面临着战略上的不确定性，也就是说，他们（通常）不知道对手打算怎么玩，也不知道对手会对自己的选择做出什么反应。例如，一个国家可能不确定恐怖组织正在策划何种策略。同样，恐怖组织可能不确定国家正在采取什么防御措施。当然，国家采取何种防御措施将取决于它认为恐怖组织正在策划何种策略。同样，恐怖组织采取何种策略将取决于它认为巴基斯坦采取了何种防御措施。因此，一个国家采取何种防御措施将受到它（该国）认为恐怖组织对其自身防御战略的看法的影响。等等......。该项目旨在通过使用认知博弈论对经济和社会现象进行建模，从而将战略不确定性引入经济和社会现象。这个项目有两个方面。首先，它开发了一套旨在将战略不确定性应用于经济问题的工具。其次，它使用这些工具来展示，在重要的应用中，战略不确定性如何让位于新的行为预测。战略不确定性的一个自然应用是议价问题：如果谈判者面对别人如何讨价还价的不确定性，那么达成协议可能会有困难。该项目将战略不确定性确定为议价问题效率低下的根源。它认为，即使谈判者在战略上很老练（在从事前向归纳推理的意义上），即使战略不确定性只在谈判过程中的意外举动之后才会出现，这些低效率也会出现。它推导出可检验的含义。如果低效的根源是战略上的不确定性，它将继续讨论效率能提高或不能提高的程度。这项研究也可以对政策处方有重要的启示，特别是在调解讨价还价领域

Understanding how individuals or groups interact is at the core of virtually every economic and social problem. A central difficulty in studying such interactions is the fact that, in practice, players face strategic uncertainty, that is, they (often) do not know what their opponents plan to play and how their opponents will react to choices they adopt. For instance, a country may be uncertain about which tactics a terrorist organization is planning. And, likewise, the terrorist organization may be uncertain about what defense measures the country is adopting. Of course, which defense measures the country adopts will be influenced by what tactics it thinks the terrorist organization is planning. And, likewise, which tactics the terrorist organization adopts will depend on what defense measures it thinks the country has put in place. As such, which defense measures the country adopts will be influenced by what it (the country) thinks the terrorist organization thinks about its own defense strategy. And so on.This project is aimed at bringing strategic uncertainty to bear on economic and social phenomena by using epistemic game theory to model it. There are two aspects of the project. First, it develops a set of tools aimed at bringing strategic uncertainty to bear on economic problems. Second, it uses these tools to show how, in important applications, strategic uncertainty can give way to novel behavioral predictions. One natural application of strategic uncertainty is to bargaining problems: If negotiators face uncertainty about how others bargain, then there may be difficulties in reaching agreements. The project identifies strategic uncertainty as a source of inefficiency in bargaining problems. It argues that these inefficiencies can arise, even if bargainers are strategically sophisticated (in the sense of engaging in forward induction reasoning) and even if strategic uncertainty only arises after surprise moves in the negotiation process. It derives testable implications. It goes on to address the extent to which efficiency can or cannot be improved, if the source of inefficiency is strategic uncertainty. This research can also have important implications for policy prescription, particularly in the area of mediated bargaining