The Large Space of Information Structures

Abstract

We revisit the question of modeling incomplete information among 2 Bayesian players, following an ex-ante approach based on values of zero-sum games. $K$ being the finite set of possible parameters, an information structure is defined as a probability distribution $u$ with finite support over $K\times \mathbb{N} \times \mathbb{N}$ with the interpretation that: $u$ is publicly known by the players, $(k,c,d)$ is selected according to $u$, then $c$ (resp. $d$) is announced to player 1 (resp. player 2). Given a payoff structure $g$, composed of matrix games indexed by the state, the value of the incomplete information game defined by $u$ and $g$ is denoted $\mathrm{val}(u,g)$. We evaluate the pseudo-distance $d(u,v)$ between 2 information structures $u$ and $v$ by the supremum of $|\mathrm{val}(u,g)-\mathrm{val}(v,g)|$ for all $g$ with payoffs in $[-1,1]$, and study the metric space $Z^*$ of equivalent information structures. We first provide a tractable characterization of $d(u,v)$, as the minimal distance between 2 polytopes, and recover the characterization of Peski (2008) for $u \succeq v$, generalizing to 2 players Blackwell's comparison of experiments via garblings. We then show that $Z^*$, endowed with a weak distance $d_W$, is homeomorphic to the set of consistent probabilities with finite support over the universal belief space of Mertens and Zamir. Finally we show the existence of a sequence of information structures, where players acquire more and more information, and of $\varepsilon>0$ such that any two elements of the sequence have distance at least $\varepsilon$: having more and more information may lead now here. As a consequence, the completion of $(Z^*,d)$ is not compact, hence not homeomorphic to the set of consistent probabilities over the states of the world {\it \`a la} Mertens and Zamir. This example answers by the negative the second (and last unsolved) of the three problems posed by J.F. Mertens in his paper ``Repeated Games", ICM 1986.