The logic of backward induction

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arieli, Itai; Aumann, Robert J.
• 署名单位: Technion Israel Institute of Technology; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.07.004
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 443-464
• 关键词: Backward induction; Common strong belief; perfect information; Syntactic interactive epistemology; Strong belief

摘要

Call a perfect information (PI) game simple if each player moves just once. Call a player rational if he never takes an action while believing, with probability 1, that a different action would yield him a higher payoff. Using syntactic logic, we show that an outcome of a simple PI game is consistent with common strong belief of rationality if it is a backward induction outcome. The result also applies to general PI games in which a player's agents act independently, rendering forward inferences invalid. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.