We give sufficient conditions for a non-zero sum discounted stochastic game with compact and convex action spaces and with norm-continuous transition probabilities, but with possibly unbounded state space, to have a Nash equilibrium in homogeneous Markov strategies that depends in a Lipschitz continuous manner on the current state. If the underlying state space is compact this yields the existe...

This paper studies the dynamics of durable and nondurable consumption under two alternative assumptions about information updating by households – rational inattention and sticky expectations. We first show that the two types of sticky information diffusion can help generate strong excess smoothness in durables consumption. We then find that sticky expectations due to a fixed cost does a better...

We consider the possibility that cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma is fostered by people’s voluntarily enhancement of their own vulnerability. The vulnerability of a player determines the effectiveness of possible punishment by the other. In the “Gradual” mechanism, players may condition their incremental enhancements of their vulnerability on the other’s choices. In the “Leap” mechanism, the...

Same Process, Different Outcomes: Group Performance in an Acquiring a Company Experiment* It is still an open question when groups perform better than individuals in intellective tasks. We report that in an Acquiring a Company game, what prevailed when there was disagreement among group members was the median proposal and not the best proposal. This aggregation rule explains why groups underper...

This paper extends Woodford’s (2010) approach to the robustly monetary policy to a general linear quadratic framework. We provide algorithms to solve for a time-invariant linear robustly optimal policy from a timeless perspective and for a time-invariant linear Markov perfect equilibrium under discretion. We apply our methods to a New Keynesian model of monetary policy with persistent cost-push...

A reference-dependent generalisation of subjective expected utility theory is presented. In this theory, preferences between acts depend both on final outcomes and on reference points (which may be uncertain acts). It is characterised by a set of axioms in a Savage-style framework. A restricted form of the theory separates attitudes to end states (encoded in a ‘satisfaction function’) from atti...

Motivated by the empirical findings concerning the importance of one’s current situation on her choice behavior, the main objective of this paper is to propose a rational choice theory that allows for the presence of a status quo bias, and that incorporates the standard choice theory as a special case. We follow a revealed preference approach, and obtain two nested models of rational choice tha...

Using a system of axioms, this paper develops a general utility model of other-regarding preferences when opponents are unfamiliar, but they are not strictly anonymous in the sense that they may share some history. Based on two key axioms, an individual’s preferences over a vector of probability distributions are additively separable in the decision maker’s own outcome and each opponent’s outco...

Hidden Insurance in a Moral Hazard Economy We consider an economy where individuals privately choose effort and trade competitively priced securities that pay off with effort-determined probability. We show that if insurance against a negative shock is sufficiently incomplete, then standard functional form restrictions ensure that individual objective functions are optimized by an effort and in...

The relationship between Popper spaces (conditional probability spaces that satisfy some regularity conditions), lexicographic probability systems (LPS’s) [Blume, Brandenburger, and Dekel 1991a; Blume, Brandenburger, and Dekel 1991b], and nonstandard probability spaces (NPS’s) is considered. If countable additivity is assumed, Popper spaces and a subclass of LPS’s are equivalent; without the as...