This paper considers terrorism as an extortion activity. It uses tools from the theory of extortion and from conflict theory to describe how terrorism works, why terrorism is a persistent phenomenon, why terrorism is a violent phenomenon, and how retaliation affects the outcome. The analysis...

The standard contest model in which participants compete in a single dimension is well understood and documented. Multi-dimension extensions are possible but are liable to increase the complexity of the contest structure, mitigating one of its main advantages: simplicity. In this paper we...

We study the residential choice of siblings who are altruistic towards their parents. The first-born child’s location choice influences the behavior of the second-born child and can shift some of the burden of providing care for the parents from one child to the other. These strategic...

We study the profitability and welfare effects of merger in a strategic trade policy environment. Merger changes the strategic trade policy equilibrium. We show that merger can be profitable and welfare enhancing here, even though it is not profitable in a laissez-faire economy. A key element is...

Altruists and envious people who meet in contests are symbionts. They do better than a population of narrowly rational individuals. If there are only altruists and envious individuals, a particular mixture of altruists and envious individuals is evolutionarily stable.

Netzwerke von mehrstufigen Ausbildungswegen mit Arrow’scher Filterfunktion können unterschiedliche Grade an horizontaler Mobilität aufweisen. Dabei stellt sich die Frage, wie wünschenswert Mobilität innerhalb des Netzwerks ist. In dieser Arbeit wird auf verschiedene mögliche Gefahren...