Econometrica: Mar, 2004, Volume 72, Issue 2

Imperfect Monitoring and Impermanent Reputations

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0262.2004.00496.x
p. 407-432

Martin W. Cripps, George J. Mailath, Larry Samuelson

We study the long‐run sustainability of reputations in games with imperfect public monitoring. It is impossible to maintain a permanent reputation for playing a strategy that does play an equilibrium of the game without uncertainty about types. Thus, a player cannot indefinitely sustain a reputation for noncredible behavior in the presence of imperfect monitoring.