Repeated interactions provide a prominent but paradoxical hypothesis for human cooperation in one-shot interactions. Intergroup competitions provide a different hypothesis that is intuitively appealing but heterodox. We show that neither mechanism reliably supports the evolution of cooperation...

We propose a method to identify the ranking of focal points (Schelling, 1960) on the individual level. By contrast to conventional coordination, where subjects bet on only one alternative, subjects coordinate by the distribution of points. This allows them to invest in multiple alternatives and...

The concept of 'the core' originates in cooperative game theory and its introduction to economics in the 1960s as a basis for proofs of existence of general equilibrium is one of the earliest attempts to use game theory to address big questions in economics. Discovery of the core was met with...

We consider a generalization of the Minimum Cost Spanning Tree (MCST) model dubbed the Minimum Cost Connection Network (MCCN) model, where network users have connection demands in the form of a pair of target nodes they want connected directly, or indirectly. Given a network which satisfies all...

We adopt the notion of von Neumann-Morgenstern (vNM) farsightedly stable sets to determine which matchings are possibly stable when agents are farsighted in one-to-one matching problems. We provide the characterization of vNM farsightedly stable sets: a set of matchings is a vNM farsightedly...

Selfish, strategic players may benefit from cooperation, provided they reach agreement. It is therefore important to construct mechanisms that facilitate such cooperation, especially in the case of asymmetric private information. The two major issues are: (1) singling out a fair and efficient...

We show that a cooperative outcome—one that is at least next-best for the players—is not a Nash equilibrium (NE) in 19 of the 57 2 x 2 strict ordinal conflict games (33%), including Prisoners' Dilemma and Chicken. Auspiciously, in 16 of these games (84%), cooperative outcomes are nonmyopic...

We develop a stylized two-period game-theoretic model of the strategic choices made by soccer teams when selecting between defensive and attacking team formations, and between non-violent and violent styles of play. Cooperative behavior during the early stages of matches is typically superseded...

This paper associates a strategic n-person game with a given transferable utility game and studies its Nash equilibria. Strict equilibria in this model characterize those divisions of social surplus that can become conventions in the sense of Young (1993). It is shown that even in relatively...