Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching
Open accessAbstract
The paper considers the repeated prisoner's dilemma in a large-population random-matching setting where players are unable to recognize their opponents. Despite the informational restrictions cooperation is still a sequential equilibrium supported by “contagious” punishments. The equilibrium does not require excessive patience, and contrary to previous thought, need not be extraordinarily fragile. It is robust to the introduction of small amounts of noise and remains nearly efficient. Extensions are discussed to models with heterogeneous rates of time preference and without public randomizations.
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The step from direct to indirect reciprocity corresponds to the step from personal enforcement to community enforcement.
“In this sense, the step from direct to indirect reciprocity corresponds simply to the step from personal enforcement to community enforcement 26-29 .”
From Evolution of indirect reciprocity (2005) · cites this paper as [29]
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Research works printed but not linked: 3
- FRIEDMAN, J. (1971), "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames", Review of Economic Studies, 38, 1-12.
- GREIF, A. (1989), "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders", Journal of Economic History, 69, 857-882.
- SABOURIAN, H. (1990), "Anonymous Repeated Games with a Large Number of Players and Random Out- comes", Journal of Economiic Theory, 51, 92-110.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Evolution of indirect reciprocity
Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature04131 · Cited by 2,762 · see citing works
More order with less law: On contract enforcement, trust and crowding
Bohnet, I., Frey, B. S., & Huck, S. (2001) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055401000211 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Cooperation among strangers with limited information about reputation
Bolton, G. E., Katok, E., & Ockenfels, A. (2005) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.03.008 · Cited by 305 · see citing works
Tirole, J. (2021) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20201214 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ellison, G.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ellison, G.
- ORCID
- Ellison, G.
- Venue
- The Review of Economic Studies
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1994-07-01
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 567-588
- ISSN
- 0034-6527 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-937X
- OpenAlex
- W1984093725
- Cited by
- 456
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 4.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.dklevine.com
- Locations
- The Review of Economic Studies (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (9310009)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Game Theory and Applications
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Keywords
- iterated prisoner's dilemma, cooperation, sequential equilibrium, noise robustness, efficiency, heterogeneous time preferences, large populations
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