Social welfare in search games with asymmetric information

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bavly, Gilad; Heller, Yuval; Schreiber, Amnon
• 署名单位: Bar Ilan University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2022.105462
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: Incomplete information; Search duplication; Decentralized research; social welfare

摘要

We consider games in which players search for a hidden prize, and they have asymmetric information about the prize's location. We study the social payoff in equilibria of these games. We present sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium that yields the first-best payoff (i.e., the highest social payoff under any strategy profile), and we characterize the first-best payoff. The results have interesting implica-tions for innovation contests and R&D races. (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.