Equilibrium Selection by Intentional Idiosyncratic Play, SFI Working Papers Bookmark and Share

Excerpt: We introduce intentional idiosyncratic play in a standard stochastic evolutionary model of equilibrium selection in bargaining games. We define intentional mutations as rare play of mixed strategies that are supported only on the set of strategies that would give the idiosyncratic player a higher payoff were sufficiently many others to do the same. In contract games intentional idiosyncratic play alters the standard perturbed evolutionary dynamic, where idiosyncratic play is drawn from the entire strategy set, in ways that are plausible in light of historical studies of institutional transitions. (...)