We study a 2-player Blotto game where the n items have asymmetric values. The winner of each item is determined stochastically using a lottery mechanism. We analyze two payoff objectives: (i) players maximize their total expected payoffs and (ii) players maximize their probability of winning a...

In our original comment, we showed that Hausken's characterization of Nash equilibrium is invalid for much of the parameter space examined and provided necessary conditions for his solution to hold. Most of the comments in his reply are either tangential or irrelevant. However, several of the...

Kovenock and Roberson’s (2012ab) replication of Hausken’s (2008a) equations and parameter restrictions do not enhance our insight into the defense and attack of reliability systems. This reply intends to fill the remaining understanding gaps.

In Rome, on 16 March 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped Aldo Moro. They kept him a prisoner for 55 days, and ultimately killed him. Why did they decide to kill Moro since it appears a posteriori that they did not improve their situation by doing so? Our paper answers this question by building...

Hausken (2008a) formulates a contest-theoretic model of the attack and defense of a network of targets. This note identies a technical error that invalidates Hausken's characterization of Nash equilibrium for a substantial portion of the parameter space that he examines and provides necessary...

Kovenock and Roberson’s (2010) paper has the potential to advance the research frontier, but has deficiencies. This paper suggests how Kovenock and Roberson’s (2010) paper can be developed into a more substantial paper. Kovenock and Roberson’s (2010) paper consists of three sections. The...

Social conventions and norms can be modeled as equilibria of coordination games. it is argued that the critical mass necessary for a society to move from one convention, that is from one equilibrium, to another changes correspondingly with changes in the population structure due to generation...

Consider the following nine rules for adjudicating conflicting claims: the proportional, constrained equal awards, constrained equal losses, Talmud, Piniles’, constrained egalitarian, adjusted proportional, random arrival, and minimal overlap rules. For each pair of rules in this list, we...

It is found that the “Theory of Moves” is adequate in a Cold War scenario, with functionally equal participants, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The destabilization of normal incentive systems, under power and information asymmetry, is what prevents an equilibrium from being reached, as...