Axiomatic Characterizations of Rational Choice in Strategic Environme nts

For more than forty years, economists have wrestled with the elusive notion of "rational" behavior in strategic environments, generating a variety of competing approaches. Even for simple, simultaneous move games, four distinct solution concepts, including the notions of Nash equilibria, correlated equilibria, rationalizability, and iterated dominance, currently have some standing as theories of strategic rationality. Here, I propose four axioms for rational choice in strategic environments, and use these to characterize the sets of pure strategies that players may select under each of the solution concepts mentioned above. My results underscore both the similarities and differences between the four concepts.