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arXiv · 2506.10663

Cursed Equilibria and Knightian Uncertainty in a Trading Game

Jurek Preker
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Abstract

We introduce a novel equilibrium concept that incorporates Knightian uncertainty into the cursed equilibrium (Eyster and Rabin, 2005). This concept is then applied to a two-player game in which agents can engage in trade or refuse to do so. While the Bayesian Nash equilibrium predicts that trade never happens, players do trade in a cursed equilibrium. The inclusion of uncertainty enhances this effect for cursed and uncertainty averse players. This contrasts general findings that uncertainty reduces trade but is consistent with behavior that has been observed in experiments.

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Jurek Preker. 2025-06-12. Cursed Equilibria and Knightian Uncertainty in a Trading Game. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10663

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