ECON Seminar / Michele Lombardi (University of Liverpool)

A player is considered strategically altruistic if he selects actions that ensure other players achieve their highest possible payoffs. An action profile constitutes a strategic altruistic equilibrium (aka, Berge equilibrium) if, for each player, the actions chosen by the opponents maximize that player's payoff. Despite the prioritization of collective welfare over individual gains, the prospects for implementing Pareto optimal goals on an unrestricted domain of preferences are bleak. Any Pareto-optimal goal that is implementable in strategic altruistic equilibria must be dictatorial.