47,238 research outputs found
Wars of attrition with spending constraints
We study wars of attrition with spending constraints. Specifically, there are two players with different values of the prize and costs of continuing wars, and they are endowed with limited budgets that can be used during the war. Two players compete by choosing the time at which they intend to give up within the constraints. We find the constrained mixed strategy equilibrium for this model and provide a full characterization of equilibrium depending on whether each player's constraint is binding or nonbinding.
Conventional contracts, intentional behavior and logit choice:Equality without symmetry
When coordination games are played under the logit choice rule and there is intentional bias in agents’ non-best response behavior, we show that the Egalitarian bargaining solution emerges as the long run social norm. Without intentional bias, a new solution, the Logit bargaining solution emerges as the long run norm. These results contrast with results under non-payoff dependent deviations from best response behavior, where it has previously been shown that the Kalai-Smorodinsky and Nash bargaining solutions emerge as long run norms. We complement the theory with experiments on human subjects, results of which suggest that non-best response play is payoff dependent and displays intentional bias. This suggests the Egalitarian solution as the most likely candidate for a long run bargaining norm
Simple Characterizations of Potential Games and Zero-sum Equivalent Games
We provide several tests to determine whether a game is a potential game or whether it is a zero-sum equivalent game—a game which is strategically equivalent to a zero-sum game in the same way that a potential game is strategically equivalent to a common interest game. We present a unified framework applica-ble for both potential and zero-sum equivalent games by deriving a simple but useful characterization of these games. This allows us to re-derive known criteria for potential games, as well as obtain several new criteria. In particular, we prove (1) new integral tests for potential games and for zero-sum equivalent games, (2) a new derivative test for zero-sum equivalent games, and (3) a new representation characterization for zero-sum equivalent games.
Positive Feedback in Coordination Games: Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics and the Logit Choice Rule
Social Conflict and the Evolution of Unequal Conventions
We propose a theory of social norms (or conventions) that implement substantial levels of inequality between men and women, ethnic groups, and classes and that persist over long periods of time despite being inefficient and not supported by formal institutions. Consistent with historical cases, we extend the standard asymmetric stochastic evolutionary game model to allow subpopulation sizes to differ and idiosyncratic rejection of a status quo convention to be intentional to some degree (rather than purely random as in the standard evolutionary models). In this setting, if idiosyncratic play is sufficiently intentional and the subordinate class is sufficiently large relative to the elite, then risk-dominated conventions that are both more unequal and inefficient relative to alternative conventions will be stochastically stable and may persist for long periods. We show that the same is true in a general bipartite network of the population if most of the subordinate groups interactions are local, while the elite is more "cosmopolitan". We apply the model to the evolution of wage conventions on the bipartite network of workers and employers, and find that an unequal monopsonistic wage convention is robust to the idiosyncratic play of workers that otherwise might displace it.
Positive Feedback in Coordination Games: Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics and the Logit Choice Rule
- …
