Cooperation in Stochastic OLG games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Messner, M; Polborn, MK
• 署名单位: Western University (University of Western Ontario); Pompeu Fabra University; Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-0531(02)00013-3
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 152-168
• 关键词: Game theory; COOPERATION; overlapping generations

摘要

This paper builds on Cremer's (Quart. J. Econ. 101 (1986) 33) seminal analysis which shows that (almost) complete cooperation can be achieved as an equilibrium in a game played by overlapping generations of players if the institution in which players cooperate is infinitely lived. We analyze a similar model in which the costs of cooperation are subject to random shocks. Even if these random shocks are very small, the range of parameters for which cooperation can be sustained is decreased considerably in comparison to the deterministic case. Furthermore, we show how the efficient outcome can be approximated if the level of cooperation can be varied continuously and the cooperation technology has decreasing or constant returns to scale, while this is not possible in the case of increasing returns to scale. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.