{"title":"A Contest Model With Reference-Dependent Preferences","authors":"Rubén Poblete-Cazenave","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3661857","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3661857","url":null,"abstract":"This paper introduces a two-stage winner-take-all contest model with reference-dependent preferences to study the determinants of conflict and its intensity. The existence of a Sub-game Perfect Nash equilibrium in pure strategies and characterization of the equilibrium are shown. Reference points are crucial in the decision of waging war and imply conflicts of higher intensity compared to standard models. The model delivers predictions in line with existing evidence and explains common empirical patterns in the conflict literature that previous models cannot account for. First, conflict is more likely to occur after negative income shocks since agents' current situation is perceived as a loss compared to the status quo. Second, income reduces the odds of conflict if agents are more risk-averse for gains than risk-seeker for losses.","PeriodicalId":417242,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Pure & Mixed Strategy Games (Sub-Topic)","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127998484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Game of Variable Contributions to the Common Good under Uncertainty","authors":"H. D. Kwon","doi":"10.1287/opre.2019.1879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2019.1879","url":null,"abstract":"We consider a stochastic game of contribution to the common good in which the players have continuous control over the degree of contribution, and we examine the gradualism arising from the free rider effect. This game belongs to the class of variable concession games which generalize wars of attrition. Previously known examples of variable concession games in the literature yield equilibria characterized by singular control strategies without any delay of concession. However, these no-delay equilibria are in contrast to mixed strategy equilibria of canonical wars of attrition in which each player delays concession by a randomized time. We find that a variable contribution game with a single state variable, which extends the Nerlove-Arrow model, possesses an equilibrium characterized by regular control strategies that result in a gradual concession. This equilibrium naturally generalizes the mixed strategy equilibria from the canonical wars of attrition. Stochasticity of the problem accentuates the qualitative difference between a singular control solution and a regular control equilibrium solution. We also find that asymmetry between the players can mitigate the inefficiency caused by the gradualism.","PeriodicalId":417242,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Pure & Mixed Strategy Games (Sub-Topic)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130328358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stopping with Congestion and Private Payoffs","authors":"Caroline D. Thomas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3168689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3168689","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper analyses a two-player stopping game with multiarmed bandits in which each player chooses between learning about the quality of her private risky arm and competing for the use of a single shared safe arm. The qualities of the players’ risky arms are independent. A player whose risky arm produces a success no longer competes for the safe arm. We assume that a player observes her opponent’s actions but not his realised payoffs. She is therefore never certain whether her opponent is still competing for the safe arm. When the players’ prior probabilities of success are sufficiently close, there exists no pure strategy equilibrium, and we characterise the unique mixed strategy equilibrium. Otherwise, the unique equilibrium is in pure strategies. The amount of experimentation performed in equilibrium is inefficiently low but, for many priors, higher than if successes are publicly observed.","PeriodicalId":417242,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Pure & Mixed Strategy Games (Sub-Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124353561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}