Social welfare in search games with asymmetric information

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3 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider games in which players search for a hidden prize, and they have asymmetric information about the prize's location. We study the social payoff in equilibria of these games. We present sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium that yields the first-best payoff (i.e., the highest social payoff under any strategy profile), and we characterize the first-best payoff. The results have interesting implications for innovation contests and R&D races.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105462
JournalJournal of Economic Theory
Volume202
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Funding

This manuscript replaces an obsolete working paper titled ?The social payoff in differentiation games.? We thank Sergiu Hart, Igor Letina, Igal Milchtaich, Abraham Neyman, Ron Peretz, Alon Raviv, Dov Samet, and Eilon Solan, the editor Tilman B?rgers and two anonymous referees for various helpful comments. Bavly and Heller are grateful to the European Research Council for its financial support (ERC starting grant #677057). Bavly acknowledges support from the Department of Economics and the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair at Bar-Ilan University, and ISF grant 1626/18 and 2566/20. Schreiber acknowledges support from ISF grant 2897/20. This manuscript replaces an obsolete working paper titled “The social payoff in differentiation games.” We thank Sergiu Hart, Igor Letina, Igal Milchtaich, Abraham Neyman, Ron Peretz, Alon Raviv, Dov Samet, and Eilon Solan, the editor Tilman Börgers and two anonymous referees for various helpful comments. Bavly and Heller are grateful to the European Research Council for its financial support (ERC starting grant # 677057 ). Bavly acknowledges support from the Department of Economics and the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair at Bar-Ilan University , and ISF grant 1626/18 and 2566/20 . Schreiber acknowledges support from ISF grant 2897/20 .

FundersFunder number
Department of Economics
Eilon Solan
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme677057
European Commission
Bar-Ilan University
Israel Science Foundation2566/20, 2897/20, 1626/18

    Keywords

    • Decentralized research
    • Incomplete information
    • Search duplication
    • Social welfare

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