We show that every Bayesian game with purely atomic types has a measurable Bayesian equilibrium when the common knowledge relation is smooth. Conversely, for any common knowledge relation that is not smooth, there exists a type space that yields this common knowledge relation and payoffs such that the resulting Bayesian game does not have any Bayesian equilibrium. We show that our smoothness condition also rules out two paradoxes involving Bayesian games with a continuum of types: the impossibility of having a common prior on components when a common prior over the entire state space exists, and the possibility of interim betting/trade even when no such trade can be supported ex ante.
We study non-zero-sum continuous-time stochastic games, also known as continuous-time Markov games, of fixed duration. We concentrate on Markovian strategies. We show by way of example that equilibria need not exist in Markovian strategies, but they always exist in Markovian publicsignal correlated strategies. To do so, we develop criteria for a strategy profile to be an equilibrium via differential inclusions, both directly and also by modeling continuous-time stochastic as differential games and using the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. We also give an interpretation of equilibria in mixed strategies in continuous-time, and show that approximate equilibria always exist.
A general selection theorem is presented constructing a measurable mapping from a state space to a parameter space under the assumption that the state space can be decomposed as a collection of countable equivalence classes under a smooth equivalence relation. It is then shown how this selection theorem can be used as a general purpose tool for proving the existence of measurable equilibria in broad classes of several branches of games when an appropriate smoothness condition holds, including Bayesian games with atomic knowledge spaces, stochastic games with countable orbits, and graphical games of countable degree—examples of a subclass of games with uncountable state spaces that we term purely atomic games. Applications to repeated games with symmetric incomplete information and acceptable bets are also presented.
We construct a continuum of games on a countable set of players that does not possess a measurable equilibrium selection that satisfies a natural homogeneity property. The explicit nature of the construction yields counterexamples to the existence of equilibria in models with overlapping generations and in games with a continuum of players.
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