Horn's rule says that messages can be kept ambiguous if only a single interpretation is plausible. Speakers only perform costly disambiguation to convey surprising information. This paper shows that, while non-cooperative game theory cannot justify Horn's rule, evolutionary game theory can. In...

This paper develops a model of supplier-induced demand as strategic framing where the patient has reference-dependent references, and the physician can persuade the patient to buy a treatment by affecting the patient.s reference point. In the main result, the patient is assumed to have a...

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." This common adage, which seems to be adhered to in social interactions (e.g. high school cliques or work relationships) as well as in political alliances within countries and between countries, describes the ability of groups or people to work together when...

This paper presents a game-theoretic rationale for the beneficial effect of a common enemy on cooperation. In a defence game against a common natural threat, the value of the public good of defence is equal to the sum of the players’ defensive efforts. The game therefore takes the form of...

The set of equilibrium networks in the two-way flow model of network formation (Bala and Goyal, 2000) is very sensitive to the introduction of decay. Even if decay is small enough so that equilibrium networks are minimal, the set of equilibrium architectures becomes much richer, especially when...