Bassel Tarbush


Tutorial Fellow in Economics, Merton College, University of Oxford

Merton College, Merton Street, Oxford, OX1 4JD, UK
first.last @ economics.ox.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1865 286 294




On the existence of pure epsilon-equilibrium with Bary Pradelski [draft]

We show that for any ε>0, as the number of agents gets large, the share of games that admit a pure ε-equilibrium converges to 1. The asymptotic share of games that admit a pure Nash equilibrium (i.e. ε=0) is approximately 1-1/e. Conclusion: very small deviations from perfect rationality suffice to ensure the general existence of stable outcomes.


Satisficing equilibrium with Bary Pradelski [draft]

We bring the decision theoretic notion of satisficing, according to which agents play good but not necessarily their best action, to games. We provide static and dynamic foundations for the concept, and consider applications.


Game connectivity and adaptive dynamics with Tom Johnston, Michael Savery, and Alex Scott [draft]

Almost every large generic game that has a pure Nash equilibrium is connected, i.e. every non-Nash profile can reach every Nash via directed best-response paths. Implication: there are simple adaptive dynamics that converge almost surely to a pure Nash equilibrium in almost every large generic game that has one.


Economic dynamics with differential fertility with Francis Dennig [draft]

We characterize the outcomes of a canonical theoretical model of the intergenerational transmission of capital that features differential fertility. We establish easy-to-verify conditions on the primitives to guarantee global convergence to degenerate or atomless steady state distributions of capital.


Best-response dynamics, playing sequences, and convergence to equilibrium in random games with Torsten Heinrich, Yoojin Jang, Luca Mungo, Marco Pangallo, Alex Scott, and Samuel Wiese
International Journal of Game Theory 2023 [article]

When played according to a fixed cyclic order, the best-response dynamic converges to a pure Nash equilibrium in a vanishingly small proportion of all large generic games.


Targeted carbon tax reforms with Maia King and Alex Teytelboym
European Economic Review 2019 [article]

We evaluate the general equilibrium impact on aggregate emissions of taxing the emissions of any set of sectors in an intersectoral production network.


Hotelling competition and the gamma distribution
Games and Economic Behavior 2018 [article, code, minor correction]

In any symmetric equilibrium of the pure location game, as the number of firms becomes large, the market share distribution converges to a Gamma(2,2) distribution. The result holds regardless of the distribution of consumers.


Social groups and social network formation with Alex Teytelboym
Games and Economic Behavior 2017 [article, code, appendix]

Dynamic network formation model on a fixed number of nodes and overlapping social groups. Homophily can be non-monotonic over time.


Counterfactuals in ā€œagreeing to disagreeā€
Mathematical Social Sciences 2016 [article]

Interpreting the Sure-Thing Principle as a counterfactual proposition resolves issues with the original ā€œagreeing to disagreeā€ result.