When evaluating the rationality of a player in a game one has to examine counterfactuals such as "what would happen if the player were to do what he does not do?" In this paper I develop a model of a normal form game where counterfactuals of this sort are evaluated as in the philosophical literature (cf. Lewis, 1973; Stalnaker, 1968). According to this method one evaluates a statement like ``what would the player believe if he were to do what he does not do'' at the world that is closest to the actual world where the hypothetical deviation occurs. I show that in this model common knowledge of rationality need not lead to rationalizability. I also present assumptions that allow rationalizability to follow from common knowledge of rationality. These assumptions suggest that rationalizability may not rely on weaker assumptions about belief consistency than Nash equilibrium.

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Counterfactual Reasoning and Common Knowledge of Rationality in Normal Form Games
Eduardo Zambrano1
1University of Notre Dame, ezambran@calpoly.edu
Citation Information: Topics in Theoretical Economics. Volume 4, Issue 1, Pages –, ISSN (Online) 1534-598X, DOI: 10.2202/1534-598X.1020, November 2004
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2004-11-10
Keywords: Common knowledge; counterfactual reasoning; interactive epistemology; rationalizability.


















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