Alternative Approaches to Dynamic Games

In recent years there has been a growing interest among economists in the multi-period dynamic interaction between players. Careful examination of this literature indicates that two major frameworks are being used in such analysis. The first discusses the dynamic interaction as a repeated game while the second uses the differential (or difference) game setting. Surprisingly, there is very little interaction in the literature between these two ‘branches’ of research, partly because differential games are described in a continuous time framework while supergames are discussed in a discrete time framework. Moreover, as was evident in this conference, there are researchers who claim that only one of the two frameworks is appropriate while the other does not truly present the dynamic aspects of games.