Grim trigger (also called the grim strategy or just grim) is a trigger strategy in game theory for a repeated game, such as an iterated prisoner's dilemma. Initially, a player using grim trigger will cooperate, but as soon as the opponent defects (thus satisfying the trigger condition), the player using grim trigger will defect for the remainder of the iterated game. Since a single defect by the opponent triggers defection forever, grim trigger is the most strictly unforgiving of strategies in an iterated game.

In iterated prisoner's dilemma strategy competitions, Grim Trigger performs poorly even without noise, and adding signal errors makes it even worse. It has many defects^[1] but it primarily suffers from the inability to threaten permanent defection.

In Robert Axelrod's book The Evolution of Cooperation, grim trigger is called "FRIEDMAN" (James Friedman uses the concept in the 1971 paper: A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames).

[edit] See also

• Folk theorem (game theory)

[edit] References

This economics or finance-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e