Economics Seminar (2020-15)

Topic: Reputation Building under Obervational Learning

Speaker: Harry Pei, Northwestern University

Time: Oct. 23,Friday.09:00a.m.- 10:30a.m. Beijing Time

Location: Microsoft Teams Online Conference Room 

Abstract:

I study a social learning model in which a sequence of myopic players observe the actions oftheir predecessors in order to forecast the behavior of a strategic long-run player. A sequence of buyers interact with a patient seller, who is either a strategic type or a commitment type that mechanically plays the optimal commitment action. When each buyer observes all previous buyers’ actions and a bounded subset of the seller’s past actions, there exist equilibria in which the patient seller receives his minmax payoffff since the speed of consumer-learning goes to zero as the seller becomes patient. When each buyer observes all previous buyers’ actions and an unboundedly informative private signal about the seller’s current-period action, the speed of learning is bounded away from zero and a patient seller receives at least his optimal commitment payoffff in all equilibria. My results provide an explanation for instances of reputation failures and successful policy interventions in developing countries.

Introduction:

Harry PEI is an assistant professor of the department of Economics, Northwestern University. His research Interests: Game Theory, Monotone Methods, Political Economy, Law and Economics, Organizational Economics.

More information: //sites.northwestern.edu/harrypei/

Your participation is welcomed.