Bayesian Games With a Continuum of States

Abstract: Negative results on the the existence of Bayesian equilibria when state spaces have the cardinality of the continuum have been attained in recent years. This has led to the natural question: are there conditions that characterise when Bayesian games over continuum state spaces have measurable Bayesian equilibria? We answer this in the affirmative. Assuming that each type has finite or countable support, Bayesian equilibria may fail to exist if and only if the underlying common knowledge σ-algebra is non-separable. Furthermore, anomalous examples with continuum state spaces have been presented in the literature in which common priors exist over entire state spaces but not over common knowledge components. There are also spaces over which players can have no disagreement, but when restricting attention to common knowledge components disagreements can exist. We show that when the common knowledge σ-algebra is separable all these anomalies disappear.