There are several well-known games in which the pareto optima and Nash equilibria are disjoint sets.
The most famous is probably the prisoner's dilemma. Races to the bottom or tragedies of the commons typically have this feature as well.
I proposed calling these inefficient games. More generally, games where the sets of pareto optima and Nash equilibria are distinct (but not disjoint), such as a stag hunt could be called potentially inefficient games.
It seems worthwhile to study (potentially) inefficient games as a class and see what can be discovered about them, but I don't know of any such work (pointers welcome!)
Didn't you mean to write
Companies want to construct a better game where they get more profitable and doing business is hard for the competitors.
..?
I think they want both.
In the oil industry, it is in no one's interest that there be any uncertainty or vagueness in the regulations about what should be considered a "bookable reserve" which a company can formally count as part of its net assets. Everyone wants the definitions to be extremely clear because then investors can make decisions with confidence and clarity, more money flows through the system, and assets can be traded and sold easily.
A world without such regulations is worse for everyone, except perhaps the extremely skilled con artis... (read more)