Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58407 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 10-3
Publisher: 
University of California, Department of Economics, Davis, CA
Abstract: 
We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule imitate-the-best can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and show that it can only be beaten by much in games that are of the rock-scissors-paper variety. Thus, in many interesting examples, like 2x2 games, Cournot duopoly, price competition, rent seeking, public goods games, common pool resource games, minimum effort coordination games, arms race, search, bargaining, etc., imitation cannot be beaten by much even by a very clever opponent.
Subjects: 
imitate-the-best
learning
symmetric games
relative payoffs
zero-sum games
rock-paper-scissors
finite population ESS
potential games
quasisubmodular games
quasisupermodular games
quasiconcave games
aggregative games
JEL: 
C72
C73
D43
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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