Trees and Extensive Forms

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of what it takes to obtain a well-de?ned extensive form game. Without relying on simplifying ?niteness or discreteness assumptions, we characterize the class of game trees for which (a) extensive forms can be de?ned and (b) all pure strategy combinations induce unique outcomes. The generality of the set-up covers “exotic” cases, like stochastic games or decision problems in continuous time (di?erential games). We ?nd that the latter class ful?lls the ?rst, but not the second requirement.