Unbeatable Imitation

• Verfasst von: Dürsch, Peter [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Oechssler, Joerg [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Schipper, Burkhard [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Unbeatable Imitation
• Verf.angabe: Peter Duersch; Jörg Oechssler; Burkhard C. Schipper
• Verlagsort: Heidelberg
• Verlag: Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Heidelberg
• E-Jahr: 2010
• Jahr: February 18, 2010
• Umfang: 1 Online-Ressource
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Discussion paper series / Universität Heidelberg, Department of Economics ; No. 499
• Fussnoten: Online publiziert: 2010
• ComputerInfo: Systemvoraussetzungen: Acrobat Reader.
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-opus-105444
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: Imitate-the-best
• Sach-SW: learning
• Sach-SW: symmetric games
• Sach-SW: relative payoffs
• Sach-SW: zero- sum games
• Form-SW: Arbeitspapier
• Form-SW: Graue Literatur
• K10plus-PPN: 623037750
• K10plus-PPN:
  Universitätsbibliothek
• Lokale URL UB: Zum Volltext

Abstract

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule "imitate-the-best" can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and show that it can only be beaten by much in games that are of the rock-scissors-paper variety. Thus, in many interesting examples, like 2x2 games, Cournot duopoly, price competition, rent seeking, public goods games, common pool resource games, minimum effort coordination games, arms race, search, bargaining, etc., imitation cannot be beaten by much even by a very clever opponent.