This paper attemps to identify, in a framework deliberately stripped of unnecessary technical- ities, some of the basic reasons why adaptive learning may or may not lead to stability and convergence to self-fulfilling expectations in large socioeconomic systems where no agent, or collection of...

This paper attempts to identify, in a framework deliberately stripped of unnecessary technicalities, some of the basic reasons why adaptative learning may or may not lead to stability and convergence to self-fulfilling expectations in large socioeconomic systems where no agent, or collection of...

We study how a behavior (an idea, buying a product, having a disease, adopting a cultural fad or a technology) spreads among agents in an a social network that exhibits segregation or homophily (the tendency of agents to associate with others similar to themselves). Individuals are distinguished...

In a game with positive externalities, such as e.g. the standard environmental externality game used in the analysis of international environmental agreements, the solutions having the property of coalitional internal stability, when they exist, are compared in this paper with the solutions with...

We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have “yes” or “no” inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes...

The paper is not intended for game theorists - unless they are interested in learning how their theories, and the theory of environmental games as developed in a forthcoming book, are being used for studying the current problem of climate change. Similarly for economists. In general, the...

This paper provides a methodology to study coalition formation problems with externalities and heterogeneous players, when some subset of the players can act as “coalition developers” over time. The framework provided here allows to explicitly predict the timing of admission to coalitions,...

Is selfishness always a bad thing, in the sense that people can only be better off when everyone is concerned with the well-being of others as well as with his own, or are there situations in which altruism can actually make things worse for all people involved ? This paper tackles this question...

This paper introduces a core concept, called the γ-core, in the primitive framework of a strategic game. For a certain class of strategic games, it is a weaker concept than the strong Nash equilibrium, but in general stronger than the conventional α- and β- cores. We argue that the coalition...

In this paper we analyze the negotiation strategy of the European Union regarding the formation of an international climate agreement for the post-2012 era. We use game theoretical stability concepts to explore incentives for key players in the climate policy game to join future climate...