COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

Lux et veritas

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 1772R

Interdependent Preferences and Strategic Distinguishability

Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris and Satoru Takahashi

September 2010
Revised February 2011

A universal type space of interdependent expected utility preference types is constructed from higher-order preference hierarchies describing (i) an agent's (unconditional) preferences over a lottery space; (ii) the agent's preference over Anscombe-Aumann acts conditional on the unconditional preferences; and so on.

Two types are said to be strategically indistinguishable if they have an equilibrium action in common in any mechanism that they play. We show that two types are strategically indistinguishable if and only if they have the same preference hierarchy. We examine how this result extends to alternative solution concepts and strategic relations between types.

Keywords: Interdependent preferences, Higher-order preference hierarchy, Universal type space, Strategic distinguishability

JEL Classification: C79, D82, D83