Community enforcement using modal actions

Journal article

Can cooperation be sustained in large populations? This paper studies settings in which a large group of players is rematched at random each period. In such settings cooperation cannot be sustained by an equilibrium unless deviators are sanctioned by third parties. This is known as the problem of community enforcement. Previous analyses have relied on strong assumptions about what information players have access to. This paper shows that when players are matched with multiple partners in each period, it is possible to limit the amount of information required to support cooperative outcomes. The results hold for general games and for equilibria that are robust to noise.

Authors: Jindani, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Journal of Economic Theory
• Volume: 185
• Article number: 104972
• Publication date: 2019-11-27
• Acceptance date: 2019-11-23
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2019.104972
• EISSN: 1095-7235
• ISSN: 0022-0531
• Language: English
• Keywords: modal actions; repeated games; random matching; community enforcement; information transmission