Now it is good to draw out the extensive form of a game and
go through what we just went through.
I think you can get a lot of good intuition from that.
But you don't always have to do that.
There are real world situations that involve signaling games
where you can really get an intuition of the implications of the game
just by looking at some basic prices.
Let's look now at a couple of gas stations.
So these are two gas stations that are right across from each other.
They both buy their gas from the same supplier at the same amount of money.
And they're setting their price at $2.29 per gallon at the pump.
Now everything's going along just fine and they're both making money, and they're
both selling snacks in their convenience stores located next to the gas station.
Until one day one of the gas stations drops their price,
in an aggressive move, to $1.99.
Now you can imagine what just happened to the demand for
the gas station that's charging $2.29.
That's, I mean, 30 cents difference in price.
Their demand is going to go way down.
No what is that first gas station likely to do?
Well, here's what they might do.
They may drop their price really aggressively, all the way to $1.79,
potentially all the way to the point that they aren't even making any money.
What are they doing?
They're retaliating against that gas station that cut their price to $1.99.
And they may sit there for a couple of periods, bleeding cash.
Right, neither of them are making a lot of money, but
definitely the $1.79 is making very little money.
They may sit there for a couple of weeks.
And then finally, the other gas station that was originally aggressive says,
you know what?
This is hurting pretty bad.
Am going to raise my price to $2.29 again.
And what happens with that first gas station?
Then they raise the price to $2.29 again.
What just happened there?
That first gas station sent a signal, and that signal went lke this.
If you mess with me, I will mess with you.
And that's unmistakable signal to that second gas station.
They never got together, talked about price, coordinated, they didn't do that.
That's illegal.
But they certainly can change prices in a way that sends signals to
their opponent about their future intentions, either to cooperate or
punish the other side if they make aggressive behavior.
That's a very simple signaling strategy that I'm sure was very clear
to that second gas station.
Now what do I really want you to take away from this game theory module?
FIrst of all, know which game you're playing.
Are you really in a prisoner's dilemma game?