What can imitation achieve ?
Abstract.
Imitating other players' moves is a commonly used heuristic
in games that people play. Game theorists and decision theorists
have studied the strategic role of imitation and increase in
efficiency (if any) due to imitation, especially in the context
of repeated normal form games.
In games with structure, epistemic considerations lead to more
interesting situations involving imitation, as players further
reason about imitative actions of othe players and thus mutually
strategize. For example, in what is referred to as `monkey-chess',
if player white somehow knows that her opponent will copy her
move for move, then there is a simple sequence of moves allowing
her to checkmate the opponent.
In the context of games on finite graphs, we study the effect of
logically specified imitative strategies and address questions
of which eventual outcomes can be realized.
Relevant Papers.
- Karl S. Schlag, Why imitate, and if so, how ?,
in Journal of Economic Theory, January (1998), 130-156.
- Jayasri Dutta and Kisalaya Prasad, Imitation and
long run outcomes, in The B.E. Journal of Theoretical
Economics, 4(1):7, 2004.
- David K. Levine and Wolfgang Pesendorfer,
The evolution of cooperation through imitation,
in Games and Economic Behaviour, 58(2), 2007, 293-315.