This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker’s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender’s objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest...

This paper examines conflicts in which performance is measured by the players' success or failure in multiple component conflicts, commonly termed “battlefields”. In multi-battlefield conflicts, behavioral linkages across battlefields depend both on the technologies of conflict within each...

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in contestants’ investment costs affects the competition intensity in a dynamic elimination contest. Theory predicts that the absolute level of investment costs has no effect on the competition intensity in homogeneous interactions. Relative cost...

We interpret the TV-show Come Dine with Me as a simultaneous non-cooperative game with evaluation levels as strategic variables, and show that it belongs to a class of strategic games which we label mutual evaluations games (MEG). Any MEG possesses a ‘zero equilibrium’—i. e. a Nash...

This paper considers the effects of an interim performance evaluation on the decision of a principal to delegate authority to a potentially biased but better informed agent. Assuming the agents’ outside option to be determined by market beliefs about their type, interim evaluations (a) provide...

In the basic model of the literature on international environmental agreements (IEAs) (Barrett 1994; Rubio and Ulph 2006) the number of signatories of self-enforcing IEAs does not exceed three, if non-positive emissions are ruled out. We extend that model by introducing a composite consumer good and...

We provide a solution to the free-rider problem in the provision of a public good. To this end we define a biased indirect contribution game which provides the efficient amount of the public good in non-cooperative Nash equilibrium. No confiscatory taxes or other means of coercion are used. We...

We investigate the trade-off between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by more interconnected firms and the costs resulting from an increased risk exposure. We find that when the shock distribution displays “fat” tails, extreme segmentation into small components is optimal, while minimal...

We investigate whether the simple plurality rule aggregates information efficiently in a large election with three alternatives. The environment is the same as in the Condorcet Jury Theorem (Condorcet (1785)). Voters have common preferences that depend on the unknown state of nature, and they...