<p>Maybe not what you are looking for, but a related concept is regret. Orphanides and Zervos (1995) is a classic paper on rational regret in a health economics concept <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2138580?uid=3739840&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;uid=3739256&amp;sid=21106216442271" rel="nofollow">http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2138580?uid=3739840&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;uid=3739256&amp;sid=21106216442271</a> </p>

<p>There's also plenty of irrational regret papers, mostly just boiling down to hyperbolic discounting models.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-25T02:56:33.207Z
Regret aversion seems somewhat orthogonal to agents which "forget". Forgetfulness seems to be much better modeled by imperfect recall in games.
HRSE
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-30T16:57:27.693Z
2015-04-30T16:57:27.693Z
Matthew
<p>This topic has been studied widely in the theory of repeated games. See for example:</p>

<p>Robert J. Aumann, Sylvain Sorin: <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0899825689900031" rel="nofollow">Cooperation and bounded recall</a>, Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 1, No. 1. (March 1989)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-24T14:40:22.320Z
2015-09-24T14:40:22.320Z
Erel Segal-Halevi
<p>I'm interested to know economic justifications of forgetting in various fields.</p>

<p>On example is <a href="http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/IO_Files/nooncooperative%20collussion%20green%20and%20porter.pdf">Green and Porter(1984)</a>. To sustain a Cartel, Cartel members have incentive to forget deviations in a sufficiently distant past.</p>

<p>Another is <a href="https://www.sabanciuniv.edu/HaberlerDuyurular/Documents/DD20061109143555/MehmetEkmekci.pdf">Ekmekciy(2011)</a> which shows that a rating system works better if it stops publicize misconducts, once they're old enough.</p>

<p>Literature on a more abstract level is also welcomed, e.g. results like it's more socially desirable in a dynamic games, some agents are restricted to stationary strategies.</p>

<game-theory><reference-request><uncertainty>
Economics of forgetting
Metta World Peace
# Economics of forgetting

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-04-23)

I'm interested to know economic justifications of forgetting in various fields.

On example is [Green and Porter(1984)](http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/IO_Files/nooncooperative%20collussion%20green%20and%20porter.pdf). To sustain a Cartel, Cartel members have incentive to forget deviations in a sufficiently distant past.

Another is [Ekmekciy(2011)](https://www.sabanciuniv.edu/HaberlerDuyurular/Documents/DD20061109143555/MehmetEkmekci.pdf) which shows that a rating system works better if it stops publicize misconducts, once they're old enough.

Literature on a more abstract level is also welcomed, e.g. results like it's more socially desirable in a dynamic games, some agents are restricted to stationary strategies.

**Tags:** game-theory, reference-request, uncertainty

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-04-30. Score: 4

Maybe not what you are looking for, but a related concept is regret. Orphanides and Zervos (1995) is a classic paper on rational regret in a health economics concept <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2138580?uid=3739840&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106216442271>

There's also plenty of irrational regret papers, mostly just boiling down to hyperbolic discounting models.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Regret aversion seems somewhat orthogonal to agents which "forget". Forgetfulness seems to be much better modeled by imperfect recall in games.  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2015-09-24. Score: 4

This topic has been studied widely in the theory of repeated games. See for example:

Robert J. Aumann, Sylvain Sorin: [Cooperation and bounded recall](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0899825689900031), Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 1, No. 1. (March 1989)


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