Language, Meaning, and Games: A Model of Communication, Coordination, and Evolution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Demichelis, Stefano; Weibull, Jorgen W.
• 署名单位: University of Pavia; Stockholm School of Economics
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.98.4.1292
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 1292-1311
• 关键词: cheap-talk; SCREENING ETHICS; STABILITY; nash; equilibrium; EFFICIENCY; play; INFORMATION; promises

摘要

Language is a powerful coordination device. We generalize the cheap-talk approach to pre-play communication by way of introducing a meaning correspondence between messages and actions, and by postulating two axioms met by natural languages. Players have a lexicographic preference, second to material payoffs, against deviating from the meaning correspondence. Under two-sided communication in generic and symmetric n x n-coordination games, a Nash equilibrium component in such a lexicographic communication game is evolutionarily stable if and only if it results in the unique Pareto efficient outcome of the underlying game. We extend the analysis to one-sided communication in arbitrary finite two-player games.