We consider a population of buyers who have unit demand for a homogeneous good, and only differ in terms of how soon they need to purchase it. These buyers have access to a stochastic stream of second-price auctions, as well as a retail outlet that can be used at any time. We characterize the equilibrium bidding dynamics, showing that bidders steadily raise their reservation price as they appro...

A group of individuals repeatedly plays a fixed extensive-form game, using past play to forecast future actions. Each (asymptotically) maximizes his own immediate expected payoff, believing that others' play corresponds to the historical frequencies of past play. Because players observe only the path of play in each round, they may not learn how others act in parts of the game tree that are not...

This paper proposes using computational learning theory (CLT) as a framework for analyzing the information processing behavior of firms; we argue that firms can be viewed as learning algorithms. The costs and benefits of processing information are linked to the structure of the firm and its relationship with the environment. We model the firm as a type of artificial neural network (ANN). By a s...

Often democracy is defeated by democratically elected leaders who pursue undemocratic policies. The present contribution seeks to explain how information can a¤ect the danger of incompetent or populist politicians being elected into o¢ ce. It is shown with the help of a voting model that both the proportion of informed voters in a society and the state of the economy matter for determining who ...

We explore the connection between shock observability and equilibrium. When aggregate shocks are unobserved the rational expectations solutions remain unchanged if contemporaneous aggregate outcomes are observable, but their stability under adaptive learning must be reconsidered. We obtain learning stability conditions and show that, provided there is not large positive expectational feedback, ...

Two subjects have to repeatedly choose between two alternatives, A and B, where payoffs of an A or B-choice depend on the choices made by both players in a number of previous choices. Locally, alternative A gives always more payoff than alternative B. However, in terms of overall payoffs exclusive choice of B is a better strategy. The equilibrium predicted by the theory of melioration is to exc...

In this paper we analyze the equilibria structure of k-price auctions, k G 3, under the independent-private-value assumption. We discuss agents with an arbitrary attitude toward risk. That is, agents may be risk averse or risk seeking, or they may have an alternating attitude toward risk. We provide a characterization of a continuous symmetric equilibrium, prove that there exists at most one su...

We study a model of communication and Bayesian persuasion between a sender who is privately informed and has state independent preferences, and a receiver who has preferences that depend on the unknown state. In a model with two states of the world, over the interesting range of parameters, the equilibria can be pooling or separating, but a particular novel refinement forces the pooling to be o...

This paper develops a dynamic model of an economy in which homogeneous agents choose between specializing as producers or as merchants, and can change occupation at any time. Merchants operate alongside a decentralized search market and provide immediacy in exchange in return for a price. We characterize equilibria in symmetric Markov strategies, and derive conditions under which merchants and ...

Models of macroeconomic learning are populated by agents who possess a great deal of knowledge of the “true” structure of the economy, and yet ignore the impact of their own learning on that structure; they may learn about an equilibrium, but they do not learn within it. An alternative learning model is presented where agents’ decisions are informed by hypotheses they hold regarding the economy...