Hierarchical firms are enterprises with rigid internal job ladders. We examine the state enterprise as the prototypical hierarchical firm. In the state enterprise, promotion of employees through the internal hierarchy is determined by the workers’ allocation of time between rent seeking and...

We study experimentally “partnership protocols” of the sort proposed by Kalai and Kalai (2010), for bilateral trade games with incomplete information. We utilize the familiar game analyzed by Chatterjee and Samuelson (1983) and Myerson and Sattherwaite (1983), with a buyer and seller with...

Two decision-makers choose hawkish or dovish actions in a conflict game with incomplete information. The decision-making can be manipulated by "extremists" who send publicly observed cheap-talk messages. The power of extremists depends on the nature of the underlying conflict game. If actions...

Stag hunt and chicken games are canonical representations of two kinds of strategic interactions. In stag hunt, aggression feeds on itself, and mutual fear escalates into conflict. Chicken is a model of preemption and deterrence. With complete information, these games have multiple Nash...

We test the assumption that preferences are unchanged throughout a strategic game in the absence of feedback. To do so, we study the relationship between the strategic nature of a game and players' identification in social groups. We present evidence that the strategic nature of the game affects...

We build a game-theoretic model where aggression can be triggered by domestic political concerns as well as the fear of being attacked. In the model, leaders of full and limited democracies risk losing power if they do not stand up to threats from abroad. In addition, the leader of a fully...