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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Weakest-Link Attacker-Defender Games With Multiple Attack Technologies, Daniel G. Arce, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Weakest-Link Attacker-Defender Games With Multiple Attack Technologies, Daniel G. Arce, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
In this article, we examine a model of terrorism that focuses on the tradeoffs facing a terrorist organization that has two qualitatively different attack modes at its disposal. The terrorist organization's objective is to successfully attack at least one target. Success for the target government is defined as defending all targets from any and all attacks. In this context, we examine how terrorist entities strategically utilize an efficient but discrete attack technology e.g., suicide attacks when a more conventional mode of attack is available, and the optimal anti-terrorism measures.
Managing A Duopolistic Water Market With Confirmed Proposals. An Experiment, Aurora García-Gallego, Nikolaos Georgantzís, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Praveen Kujal
Managing A Duopolistic Water Market With Confirmed Proposals. An Experiment, Aurora García-Gallego, Nikolaos Georgantzís, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Praveen Kujal
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We report results from experimental water markets in which owners of two different sources of water supply water to households and farmers. The final water quality consumed by each type of consumer is determined through mixing of qualities from two different resources. We compare the standard duopolistic market structure with an alternative market clearing mechanism inspired by games with confirmed strategies (which have been shown to yield collusive outcomes). As in the static case, complex dynamic markets operating under a confirmed proposals protocol yield less efficient outcomes because coordination among independent suppliers has the usual effects of restricting output and …
Resource Adequacy: Should Regulators Worry?, Hernan D. Bejarano, Lance Clifner, Carl Johnston, Stephen J. Rassenti, Vernon L. Smith
Resource Adequacy: Should Regulators Worry?, Hernan D. Bejarano, Lance Clifner, Carl Johnston, Stephen J. Rassenti, Vernon L. Smith
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
Regulators have proposed various institutional alternatives to secure network resource adequacy and reasonably priced electric power for consumers. These alternatives prompt many difficult questions: Does the development of Demand Response reduce the need for new capacity? How effectively can a government-mandated Capacity Market foster efficient investment? How does centralized generator commitment (with revenue guarantees) compare to a system in which Generators voluntarily commit themselves with no revenue guarantees? If exclusive distribution contracts were replaced by unregulated retail competition, what would be the effects on investment and market prices? We use laboratory experiments to address these questions.
The Herodotus Paradox, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries
The Herodotus Paradox, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
The Babylonian bridal auction, described by Herodotus, is regarded as one of the earliest uses of an auction in history. Yet, to our knowledge, the literature lacks a formal equilibrium analysis of this auction. We provide such an analysis for the two-player case with complete and incomplete information, and in so doing identify what we call the 'Herodotus paradox.'
Age Effects And Heuristics In Decision Making, Tibor Besedeš, Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi, Mikhael Shor
Age Effects And Heuristics In Decision Making, Tibor Besedeš, Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi, Mikhael Shor
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
Using controlled experiments, we examine how individuals make choices when faced with multiple options. Choice tasks are designed to mimic the selection of health insurance, prescription drug, or retirement savings plans. In our experiment, available options can be objectively ranked, allowing us to examine optimal decision making. First, the probability of a person selecting the optimal option declines as the number of options increases, with the decline being more pronounced for older subjects. Second, heuristics differ by age, with older subjects relying more on suboptimal decision rules. In a heuristics validation experiment, older subjects make worse decisions than younger subjects.
Nonlinear Dynamics And Stability In A Multigroup Asset Flow Model, Mark Desantis, David Swigon, Gunduz Caginalp
Nonlinear Dynamics And Stability In A Multigroup Asset Flow Model, Mark Desantis, David Swigon, Gunduz Caginalp
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
The multigroup asset flow model for asset price dynamics incorporates distinct motivations, e. g., trend and fundamentals (value) and assessments of value by different groups of investors. The stability and bifurcation properties are established for the curve of equilibria. We prove that if all trader groups focus on fundamentals, then all equilibria are stable. For systems in which there is one fundamental and one momentum (trend) group, we establish conditions for stability. In particular, an equilibrium that is stable becomes unstable as the time scale on which momentum investors focus diminishes. The computations examine the excursions, which we define as …
The Political Economy Of Mass Printing: Legitimacy And Technological Change In The Ottoman Empire, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
The Political Economy Of Mass Printing: Legitimacy And Technological Change In The Ottoman Empire, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
New technologies have not always been greeted with full enthusiasm. Although the Ottomans were quick to adopt advancements in military technology, they waited almost three centuries to sanction printing in Ottoman Turkish (in Arabic characters). Printing spread relatively rapidly throughout Europe following the invention of the printing press in 1450 despite resistance by interest groups and temporary restrictions in some countries. We explain differential reaction to technology through a political economy approach centered on the legitimizing relationships between rulers and their agents (e.g., military, religious, or secular authorities). The Ottomans regulated the printing press heavily to prevent the loss it …
Coalitional Colonel Blotto Games With Application To The Economics Of Alliances, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Coalitional Colonel Blotto Games With Application To The Economics Of Alliances, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
In Borel’s (1921) Colonel Blotto game two players simultaneously allocate their respective endowments of a resource across n battlefields, the higher allocation wins each battlefield, and players maximize the number of battlefields won. Here we examine two players who may form an alliance before separately competing in two disjoint Colonel Blotto games against a common adversary. Despite a lack of common interests, unilateral transfers — in a direction consistent with the exploitation hypothesis — arise for a range of parameter configurations. Such transfers alter the adversary’s strategy and the combination of the direct and strategic effects benefits both allies.
Cooperative Strategies In Anonymous Economies: An Experiment, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari, Maria Bigoni
Cooperative Strategies In Anonymous Economies: An Experiment, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari, Maria Bigoni
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We study cooperation in economies of indefinite duration. Participants faced a sequence of prisoner’s dilemmas with anonymous opponents. We identify and characterize the strategies employed at the individual level. We report that (i) grim trigger does not describe well individual play and there is wide heterogeneity in strategies; (ii) systematic defection does not crowd-out systematic cooperation; (iii) coordination on cooperative strategies does not improve with experience. We discuss alternative methodologies and implications for theory.
Political Legitimacy And Technology Adoption, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Political Legitimacy And Technology Adoption, Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
A fundamental question of economic and technological history is why some civilizations adopted new and important technologies and others did not. In this paper, we analyze the effect that new technologies have on agents that legitimize rulers. We construct a simple political economy model which suggests that rulers may not accept a productivity-enhancing technology when it negatively affects an agent’s ability to provide the ruler legitimacy. However, when other sources of legitimacy emerge, the ruler will accept the technology as long as the new legitimizing source is not negatively affected. We use this insight to help explain the initial blocking …
The Lifeboat Problem, Kai A. Konrad, Dan Kovenock
The Lifeboat Problem, Kai A. Konrad, Dan Kovenock
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We study an all-pay contest with multiple identical prizes (“lifeboat seats”). Prizes are partitioned into subsets of prizes (“lifeboats”). Players play a two-stage game. First, each player chooses an element of the partition (“a lifeboat”). Then each player competes for a prize in the subset chosen (“a seat”). We characterize and compare the subgame perfect equilibria in which all players employ pure strategies or all players play identical mixed strategies in the first stage. The partitioning of prizes can lead to coordination failure when players employ nondegenerate mixed strategies. In these equilibria some rents are sheltered and rent dissipation is …
Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Comment, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Comment, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
The contest-theoretic literature on the attack and defense of networks of targets focuses primarily on pure-strategy Nash equilibria. Hausken's 2008 European Journal of Operational Research article typifies this approach, and many of the models in this literature either build upon this model or utilize similar techniques. We show that Hausken's characterization of Nash equilibrium is invalid for much of the parameter space examined and provides necessary conditions for his solution to hold. The complete characterization of mixed-strategy equilibria remains an open problem, although there exist solutions in the literature for special prominent cases.