arXiv subjects

Amnon Schreiber

Publications and source records attributed to Amnon Schreiber.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Two Agents, One Prompt, and Your Weight

We investigate a quantitative variant of the classic Two Doors logic puzzle, in which the answer space is no longer binary, for example when the goal is to recover a numerical fact (such as one's true weight) rather than choose between two doors. The puzzle retains the original structure: one agent always tells the truth, the other always lies. Our central contribution is to identify a class of self-referential prompts that successfully extract the correct quantitative answer under minimal assumptions. We also explore how well does \texttt{ChatGPT} does in reasoning for this problem which is just a little bit out of distribution.

math.LO↗

arXiv2025

Uniqueness of Inflection Points in Binomial Exceedance Function Compositions

We examine functions representing the cumulative probability of a binomial random variable exceeding a threshold, expressed in terms of the success probability per trial. These functions are known to exhibit a unique inflection point. We generalize this property to their compositions and highlight its applications.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

Heterogeneous Noise and Stable Miscoordination

Coordination games admit two types of equilibria: pure equilibria, where all players successfully coordinate their actions, and mixed equilibria, where players frequently experience miscoordination. The existing literature shows that under many evolutionary dynamics, populations converge to a pure equilibrium from almost any initial distribution of actions. By contrast, we show that under plausible learning dynamics, where agents observe the actions of a random sample of their opponents and adjust their strategies accordingly, stable miscoordination can arise when there is heterogeneity in the sample sizes. This occurs when some agents make decisions based on small samples (anecdotal evidence) while others rely on large samples. Finally, we demonstrate the empirical relevance of our results in a bargaining application. Final pre-print of a manuscript accepted for publication in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2022

Sampling dynamics and stable mixing in hawk-dove games

The hawk-dove game admits two types of equilibria: an asymmetric pure equilibrium in which players in one population play hawk and players in the other population play dove, and an inefficient symmetric mixed equilibrium, in which hawks are frequently matched against each other. The existing literature shows that populations will converge to playing one of the pure equilibria from almost any initial state. By contrast, we show that plausible sampling dynamics, in which agents occasionally revise their actions by observing either opponents' behavior or payoffs in a few past interactions, can induce the opposite result: global convergence to one of the inefficient mixed stationary states.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2022

Social Welfare in Search Games with Asymmetric Information

We consider games in which players search for a hidden prize, and they have asymmetric information about the prize location. We study the social payoff in equilibria of these games. We present sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium that yields the first-best payoff (i.e., the highest social payoff under any strategy profile), and we characterize the first-best payoff. The results have interesting implications for innovation contests and R&D races.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2020

The Lipschitz Constant of Perturbed Anonymous Games

The worst-case Lipschitz constant of an $n$-player $k$-action $δ$-perturbed game, $λ(n,k,δ)$, is given an explicit probabilistic description. In the case of $k\geq 3$, $λ(n,k,δ)$ is identified with the passage probability of a certain symmetric random walk on $\mathbb Z$. In the case of $k=2$ and $n$ even, $λ(n,2,δ)$ is identified with the probability that two two i.i.d.\ Binomial random variables are equal. The remaining case, $k=2$ and $n$ odd, is bounded through the adjacent (even) values of $n$. Our characterisation implies a sharp closed form asymptotic estimate of $λ(n,k,δ)$ as $δn /k\to\infty$.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2020

Short-Term Investments and Indices of Risk

We study various decision problems regarding short-term investments in risky assets whose returns evolve continuously in time. We show that in each problem, all risk-averse decision makers have the same (problem-dependent) ranking over short-term risky assets. Moreover, in each problem, the ranking is represented by the same risk index as in the case of CARA utility agents and normally distributed risky assets.

q-fin.PM↗