Pre-play communication and coordination in two-player games

  1. Urbano Salvador, Amparo
  2. Vila, José
Revista:
Working papers = Documentos de trabajo: Serie AD

Año de publicación: 1997

Número: 26

Tipo: Documento de Trabajo

Resumen

The main result of this paper is that any correlated equlibrium pay-off of a two-player complete information game with rational parameters can be reached through an unmediated costless pre-play conversation scheme. This problem was left open by Barany and Forges' analysis. Our communication protocol does not rely on external mediators of any kind. It is also self-enforcing (in the sense that no player has an incentive to deviate if the other does not) and quasi-sure (in the sense that a 'deviation from the rules' of a player can be detected by the other with a probability as close as one as we want). Coordination failures that may arise in many economic situations are solved by applying our pre-play communication scheme.