This paper proposes a theory of group formation based on the motive to seek informed opinion. Because an individual evaluates whether others are informed or not using his own priors, he identifies people with similar beliefs to be more informed than those with different beliefs. The result is an...

We study games played between groups of players, where a given group decides which strategy it will play through a vote by its members. When groups consist of two voting players, our games can also be interpreted as network-formation games. In experiments on Stag Hunt games, we find a stark...

This paper examines network formation among a connected population with a preference for conformity and leadership. Agents build stable personal relationships to achieve coordinated actions. The network serves as a repository of collective experiences so that cooperation can emerge from simple,...

This paper introduces a process of individual adjustment based on private local experiences and observation that allows for the emergence of a global social structure that is the equilibrium to the static follow-the-leader game of Goldbaum (2013). The setting rewards agents for being early...

In this paper we first analyze the actual voting results in the 2016 Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in which the Borda count was adopted to determine the final ranking of contestants. We show that some jurors are suspected of having exploited a weakness in the method to...

The persistence literature in economics and related disciplines connects recent outcomes to events long ago. This influential literature marks a promising development but has drawn criticism. We discuss two prominent examples that ground the rise of the Nazi Party in distant historical roots....

This paper investigates orderly resolutions of debts in a system of firms holding debts both within and outside the system. A firm defaulting on its external debts, say a bank defaulting on customers' deposits, becomes bankrupt. An orderly resolution avoids coordination failures and uncontrolled...

Abstract Desiring conformity but lacking common labels with which to identify the different options, a population employs reliable social connections to identify paths through which decisions can disseminate. A leader serves the population by coordinating adoption and therefore increasing...

In its 2018 introduction and subsequent work, Quadratic Funding (QF) emerged as a uniquely optimal design for the democratic provision of public goods under the assumption of atomized participants with perfect rationality. In this paper, we aim to move past this rational and atomized portrayal...

Based on the game-theoretical model approach, I analyze the equilibrium state in the finitely repeated networked prisoner's dilemma. From the 1st round to round t_c, all players play the simple two-person prisoner's dilemma game with a partner randomly selected. From round t_c to the final...