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...

We use a Tullock-type contest model to show that intuitively and structurally different contests can be strategically and revenue equivalent to each other. We consider a two-player contest, where outcome-contingent payoffs are linear functions of prizes, own effort, and the effort of the rival....

This paper proposes a multi-prize "reverse" nested lottery contest model, which can be viewed as the "mirror image" of the conventional nested lottery contest of Clark and Riis (1996a). The reverse-lottery contest model determines winners by selecting losers based on contestants' one-shot effort...

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 intergroup contests a manager advises and motivates her group’s members. Her rewards often depend on the subsequent contest expenditure of the members. I test whether such incentives undermine the credibility and effectiveness of a manager’s efforts. In the different experimental...

Multiple prizes are usually awarded in contests (e.g., internal promotions, school admissions, sports, etc), and players exert effort to increase their chances for winning a higher prize. A multi-prize contest model must provide each player's probabilities of winning each prize as functions of...

In a model of evolution driven by conflict between societies more powerful states have an advantage. When the influence of outsiders is small we show that this results in a tendency to hegemony. In a simple example in which institutions differ in their "exclusiveness" we find that these...

Arguments are statements used to persuade someone or in support of a claim. However, these are not perfect and part are be exploited by the opponent to build its own argumentation. In this paper we present a litigation success function (LSF) that considers the quality of the plainti¤ and...

In this paper, we generalize the General Lotto game (budget constraints satisfied in expectation) and the Colonel Blotto game (budget constraints hold with probability one) to allow for battlefield valuations that are heterogeneous across battlefields and asymmetric across players, and for the...

In order to determine the optimal allocation of responsibilities in disease interventions, and in designing commitment mechanisms, the paper develops a three-period game comprising policy- makers, the international community providing financial aid, and individuals. A policy-maker chooses, in...