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，参与者面临着战略不确定性，也就是说，他们（通常）不知道他们的对手计划玩什么，以及他们的对手将如何反应他们采取的选择。 例如，一个国家可能不确定恐怖组织正在计划采取何种战术。同样，恐怖组织可能不确定该国正在采取什么样的防御措施。 当然，国家采取哪种防御措施将受到它认为恐怖组织正在策划什么战术的影响。 同样，恐怖组织采取何种战术将取决于它认为该国采取了何种防御措施。 因此，国家采取何种防御措施将受到它（国家）认为恐怖组织对自己防御战略的看法的影响。 本项目旨在通过运用认知博弈理论来模拟战略不确定性对经济和社会现象的影响。 首先，它开发了一套工具，旨在使战略不确定性对经济问题产生影响。 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颖的行为预测。 战略不确定性的一个自然应用是讨价还价问题：如果谈判者面临其他人如何讨价还价的不确定性，那么达成协议可能会有困难。 该项目确定战略的不确定性作为讨价还价问题的低效率的来源。它认为，这些低效率可能会出现，即使讨价还价者是战略上复杂的（在这个意义上从事前向归纳推理），即使战略的不确定性只会出现后，在谈判过程中的意外举动。 它产生了可检验的含义。 它继续解决效率可以或不能提高的程度，如果低效率的来源是战略的不确定性。这项研究也可以有重要的影响，政策处方，特别是在该地区的调解讨价还价

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