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Biased-Belief Equilibrium

Author

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  • Heller, Yuval
  • Winter, Eyal
Abstract
We investigate how distorted, yet structured, beliefs can persist in strategic situations. Specifically, we study two-player games in which each player is endowed with a biased-belief function that represents the discrepancy between a player’s beliefs about the opponent's strategy and the actual strategy. Our equilibrium condition requires that: (1) each player choose a best-response strategy to his distorted belief about the opponent's strategy, and (2) the distortion functions form best responses to one another, in the sense that if one of the players is endowed with a different distortion function, then that player is outperformed in the game induced by this new distortion function. We impose a mild monotonicity restriction on the feasible biased beliefs, and we obtain sharp predictions and novel insights into the set of stable outcomes and their supporting stable biases in various classes of games.

Suggested Citation

  • Heller, Yuval & Winter, Eyal, 2011. "Biased-Belief Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 89912, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Nov 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:89912
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    4. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Seres, Gyula, 2022. "Anchored strategic reasoning," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    5. Leung, Benson Tsz Kin, 2020. "Limited cognitive ability and selective information processing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 345-369.
    6. Halpern, Joe & Heller, Yuval & Winter, Eyal, 2022. "The Benefits of Coarse Preferences," MPRA Paper 111670, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    commitment; indirect evolutionary approach; distortions; wishful thinking; strategic complements; strategic substitutes.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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