We study whether the number of signatures collected to qualify a popular initiative affects the probability of reforming the status quo. The initiative process is modeled as a sequential game under uncertainty: petitioners make an entry decision and collect signatures to qualify the initiative....

We illustrate one way in which a population of boundedly rational individuals can learn to play an approximate Nash equilibrium. Players are assumed to make strategy choices using a combination of imitation and innovation. We begin by looking at an imitation dynamic and provide conditions under...

We study the group stability of collective decision making when society is organized according to a non directed graph, and groups' payoff possibilities are given by a partition function. We focus on the stability properties of hierarchical organizations, formally described by minimally...

We adopt the largest consistent set defined by Chwe [J. of Econ. Theory 63 (1994), 299-235] to predict which coalition structures are possibly stable when players are farsighted. We also introduce a refinement, the largest cautious consistent set, based on the assumption that players are...

This paper analyses issue linkage as a way to increase co-operation on issues where incentives to free-ride are strong. The goal is to determine under what conditions players prefer to link negotiations on two different issues rather than to negotiate on the two issues separately. Suppose that...

In has been frequently observed, in both economics and psychology, that individuals tend to conform to the choices of other individuals with whom thy identify. Can such conformity be consistent with self-interested behaviour? To address this question we use the framework of games with incomplete...

In the literature of psychology and economics it is frequently observed that individuals tend to imitate similar individuals. A fundamental question is whether the outcome of such imitation can be consistent with self-interested behaviour. We propose that this consistency requires the existence...

Interpret a set of players all playing the same pure strategy and all with similar attributes as a society. Is it consistent with self interested behaviour for a population to organise itself into a relatively small number of societies? In a companion paper we characterised how large e must be,...

This paper examines a simple North-South growth model where negative externalities may contribute to reinforce economic growth. Agents' welfare depends on three goods in the model: leisure, a common access renewable natural resource (one in each hemisphere) and a non-storable consumption good....

In this paper, we analyze coordination of macroeconomic stabilization policies within the EMU by focusing, in a dynamic set-up, on asymmetries, externalities, and the existence of a multi-country context. We study how coalitions among fiscal and monetary authorities are formed and what are their...