{"title":"The impact of perceived strength in the war of attrition","authors":"David P. Myatt","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.01.001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a war of attrition a player's <em>perceived strength</em> is the distribution describing beliefs about her valuation. Small asymmetries in strength have a large effect: in the unique equilibrium of a game with a deadline the war ends quickly (instantly, as the deadline becomes infinite) with a concession by the (perceived) weaker player. The ranking of strength compares hazard rates in the upper tails of the distributions of beliefs; greater uncertainty about a player tends to give her more strength. The results also hold if techniques other than a deadline are used to obtain a unique equilibrium.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"150 ","pages":"Pages 260-277"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Games and Economic Behavior","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089982562500003X","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In a war of attrition a player's perceived strength is the distribution describing beliefs about her valuation. Small asymmetries in strength have a large effect: in the unique equilibrium of a game with a deadline the war ends quickly (instantly, as the deadline becomes infinite) with a concession by the (perceived) weaker player. The ranking of strength compares hazard rates in the upper tails of the distributions of beliefs; greater uncertainty about a player tends to give her more strength. The results also hold if techniques other than a deadline are used to obtain a unique equilibrium.
期刊介绍:
Games and Economic Behavior facilitates cross-fertilization between theories and applications of game theoretic reasoning. It consistently attracts the best quality and most creative papers in interdisciplinary studies within the social, biological, and mathematical sciences. Most readers recognize it as the leading journal in game theory. Research Areas Include: • Game theory • Economics • Political science • Biology • Computer science • Mathematics • Psychology