I use game-theoretical models to compare a sender's expected payoff under two methods of wielding influence under incomplete information: offering rewards or threatening punishments. Attempts to influence another's behaviour can have the perverse effect of actually encouraging the behaviour that...

I use game-theoretical models to compare a sender's expected payoff under two methods of wielding influence under incomplete information: offering rewards or threatening punishments. Attempts to influence another's behaviour can have the perverse effect of actually encouraging the behaviour that...

Sufficient conditions for Nash equilibrium in an n-person game are given in terms of what the players know and believe — about the game, and about each other's rationality, actions, knowledge, and beliefs. Mixed strategies are treated not as conscious randomizations, but as conjectures, on the...