Confidence seems to replace certain knowledge and the necessity for specific information. It simplifies economical processes and procedures, it motivates investing, and obviously, it enhances welfare — if it was missing, innumerable dealings would not be made. Consequently, if confidence among consumers was enhanced, welfare would be enhanced as well. But how may this implemented, and to which conditions is an approach successful? This paper observes the nature of consumer confidence from a law and economics perspective, and discovers its impact on markets. In two case studies, it analyses the importance of a confidence-enhancing, market-oriented regulation, regarding firstly organic farming within the European Union, and secondly Germany’s measures within the financial crisis in 2008.
{"title":"Consumer Confidence as a Matter of Information and Regulation - Can it Enhance Social Welfare?","authors":"Jan C. L. König","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1998778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1998778","url":null,"abstract":"Confidence seems to replace certain knowledge and the necessity for specific information. It simplifies economical processes and procedures, it motivates investing, and obviously, it enhances welfare — if it was missing, innumerable dealings would not be made. Consequently, if confidence among consumers was enhanced, welfare would be enhanced as well. But how may this implemented, and to which conditions is an approach successful? This paper observes the nature of consumer confidence from a law and economics perspective, and discovers its impact on markets. In two case studies, it analyses the importance of a confidence-enhancing, market-oriented regulation, regarding firstly organic farming within the European Union, and secondly Germany’s measures within the financial crisis in 2008.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122399652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We consider the many-to-many two-sided matching problem under a stringent domain restriction on preferences called the max-min criterion. We show that, even under this restriction, there is no stable mechanism that is weakly Pareto efficient, strategy-proof, or monotonic (i.e., respects improvements) for agents on one side of the market. These results imply in particular that three of the main results of Baiou and Balinski (2000) are incorrect. We also show that one of the results of Baiou and Balinski (2007) is incorrect as well.
{"title":"Many-to-Many Matching with Max-Min Preferences","authors":"J. Hatfield, F. Kojima, Yusuke Narita","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1986748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1986748","url":null,"abstract":"We consider the many-to-many two-sided matching problem under a stringent domain restriction on preferences called the max-min criterion. We show that, even under this restriction, there is no stable mechanism that is weakly Pareto efficient, strategy-proof, or monotonic (i.e., respects improvements) for agents on one side of the market. These results imply in particular that three of the main results of Baiou and Balinski (2000) are incorrect. We also show that one of the results of Baiou and Balinski (2007) is incorrect as well.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"269 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131520493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David K. Levine, S. Modica, F. Weinschelbaum, Felipe Zurita
The literature on the evolution of impatience, focusing on one-person decision problems, finds that evolutionary forces favor the more patient individuals. This paper shows that in the context of a game, this is not necessarily the case. In particular, it offers a two-population example where evolutionary forces favor impatience in one group while favoring patience in the other. Moreover, not only evolution but also efficiency may prefer impatient individuals. In our example, it is efficient for one population to evolve impatience and for the other to develop patience. Yet, evolutionary forces move the wrong populations.
{"title":"Evolving to the Impatience Trap: The Example of the Farmer-Sheriff Game","authors":"David K. Levine, S. Modica, F. Weinschelbaum, Felipe Zurita","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2149144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2149144","url":null,"abstract":"The literature on the evolution of impatience, focusing on one-person decision problems, finds that evolutionary forces favor the more patient individuals. This paper shows that in the context of a game, this is not necessarily the case. In particular, it offers a two-population example where evolutionary forces favor impatience in one group while favoring patience in the other. Moreover, not only evolution but also efficiency may prefer impatient individuals. In our example, it is efficient for one population to evolve impatience and for the other to develop patience. Yet, evolutionary forces move the wrong populations.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124210042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Managing transboundary river basins is never easy and usually involves conflicts. This paper introduces a special class of games with externalities and issue linkage to promote cooperation on transboundary water resources. The paper analyzes whether issue linkages can be used as a form of negotiations on sharing benefits and mitigating conflicts. It is shown that whenever opportunities for linkages exist, countries may indeed contribute towards cooperation. In particular, if the linked games are convex, the grand coalition is the only optimal level of social welfare
{"title":"Can Issue Linkage Help Mitigate Externalities and Enhance Cooperation?","authors":"Kim Hang Pham Do, A. Dinar, D. McKinney","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2147136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2147136","url":null,"abstract":"Managing transboundary river basins is never easy and usually involves conflicts. This paper introduces a special class of games with externalities and issue linkage to promote cooperation on transboundary water resources. The paper analyzes whether issue linkages can be used as a form of negotiations on sharing benefits and mitigating conflicts. It is shown that whenever opportunities for linkages exist, countries may indeed contribute towards cooperation. In particular, if the linked games are convex, the grand coalition is the only optimal level of social welfare","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"267 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133320221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In real-life elections, vote-counting is often imperfect. We analyze the consequences of such imperfections in plurality and runoff rule voting games. We call a strategy profile a robust equilibrium if it is an equilibrium if the probability of a miscount is positive but small. All robust equilibria of plurality voting games satisfy Duverger's Law: In any robust equilibrium, exactly two candidates receive a positive number of votes. Moreover, robust- ness (only) rules out a victory of the Condorcet loser. All robust equilibria under runoff rule satisfy Duverger's Hypothesis: First round votes vare (almost always) dispersed over more than two alternatives. Robustness has strong implications for equilibrium outcomes under runoff rule: For large parts of the parameter space, the robust equilibrium outcome is unique.
{"title":"Miscounts, Duverger's Law and Duverger's Hypothesis","authors":"M. Messner, Mattias Polborn","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1805022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1805022","url":null,"abstract":"In real-life elections, vote-counting is often imperfect. We analyze the consequences of such imperfections in plurality and runoff rule voting games. We call a strategy profile a robust equilibrium if it is an equilibrium if the probability of a miscount is positive but small. All robust equilibria of plurality voting games satisfy Duverger's Law: In any robust equilibrium, exactly two candidates receive a positive number of votes. Moreover, robust- ness (only) rules out a victory of the Condorcet loser. All robust equilibria under runoff rule satisfy Duverger's Hypothesis: First round votes vare (almost always) dispersed over more than two alternatives. Robustness has strong implications for equilibrium outcomes under runoff rule: For large parts of the parameter space, the robust equilibrium outcome is unique.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130972947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A decision maker, whose payoff is influenced by an unknown stochastic process, seeks the advice of an advisor, who may be informed about the process. We establish that there exists a strategy of the decision maker that will yield him an almost first-best payoff in every period when interacting with an informed advisor. An important feature of this strategy is that it only requires a fixed budget - regardless of the realizations of the stochastic process and whether or not the advisor is actually informed about it, the total payoff to the decision maker will never fall below a fixed threshold. The strategy also has the property that per-period compensation to the advisor is independent of the present realization of the process, and depends solely on the expected value of the advice as reported by the advisor.
{"title":"How to Buy Advice with Limited Instruments","authors":"R. Gradwohl, Yuval Salant","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1791750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1791750","url":null,"abstract":"A decision maker, whose payoff is influenced by an unknown stochastic process, seeks the advice of an advisor, who may be informed about the process. We establish that there exists a strategy of the decision maker that will yield him an almost first-best payoff in every period when interacting with an informed advisor. An important feature of this strategy is that it only requires a fixed budget - regardless of the realizations of the stochastic process and whether or not the advisor is actually informed about it, the total payoff to the decision maker will never fall below a fixed threshold. The strategy also has the property that per-period compensation to the advisor is independent of the present realization of the process, and depends solely on the expected value of the advice as reported by the advisor.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125843879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In standard political economy models, voters are ‘self-interested’ i.e. care only about ‘own’ utility. However, the emerging evidence indicates that voters often have ‘other-regarding preferences’ (ORP), i.e., in deciding among alternative policies voters care about their payoffs relative to others. We extend a widely used general equilibrium framework in political economy to allow for voters with ORP, as in Fehr- Schmidt (1999). In line with the evidence, these preferences allow voters to exhibit ‘envy’ and ‘altruism’, in addition to the standard concern for ‘own utility’. We give sufficient conditions for the existence of a Condorcet winner when voters have ORP. This could open the way for an incorporation of ORP in a variety of political economy models. Furthermore, as a corollary, we give more general conditions for the existence of a Condorcet winner when voters have purely selfish preferences.
{"title":"Existence of a Condorcet Winner When Voters Have Other-Regarding Preferences","authors":"S. Dhami","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1154597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1154597","url":null,"abstract":"In standard political economy models, voters are ‘self-interested’ i.e. care only about ‘own’ utility. However, the emerging evidence indicates that voters often have ‘other-regarding preferences’ (ORP), i.e., in deciding among alternative policies voters care about their payoffs relative to others. We extend a widely used general equilibrium framework in political economy to allow for voters with ORP, as in Fehr- Schmidt (1999). In line with the evidence, these preferences allow voters to exhibit ‘envy’ and ‘altruism’, in addition to the standard concern for ‘own utility’. We give sufficient conditions for the existence of a Condorcet winner when voters have ORP. This could open the way for an incorporation of ORP in a variety of political economy models. Furthermore, as a corollary, we give more general conditions for the existence of a Condorcet winner when voters have purely selfish preferences.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132329616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The lexicographic vectors of a balanced game, called here leximals, are used to define a new solution concept, the lexicore, on the cone of balanced games. Properties of the lexicore and its relation with the core on some classes of games are studied. It is shown that on cones of balanced games where the core is additive, the leximals, the lexicore and the Average Lexicographic (AL-)value are additive, too. Further, it turns out that the leximals satisfy a consistency property with respect to a reduced game `a la Davis and Maschler, which implies an average consistency property of the AL-value. Explicit formulas for the AL-value on the class of k-convex games and on the class of balanced almost convex games are provided.
{"title":"Leximals, the Lexicore and the Average Lexicographic Value","authors":"Yukihiko Funaki, S. Tijs, R. Branzei","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1068626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1068626","url":null,"abstract":"The lexicographic vectors of a balanced game, called here leximals, are used to define a new solution concept, the lexicore, on the cone of balanced games. Properties of the lexicore and its relation with the core on some classes of games are studied. It is shown that on cones of balanced games where the core is additive, the leximals, the lexicore and the Average Lexicographic (AL-)value are additive, too. Further, it turns out that the leximals satisfy a consistency property with respect to a reduced game `a la Davis and Maschler, which implies an average consistency property of the AL-value. Explicit formulas for the AL-value on the class of k-convex games and on the class of balanced almost convex games are provided.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131260740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we examine the question of which coalition structures farsighted players form in coalition formation games with externalities. We introduce a stability concept for a coalition structure called a sequentially stable coalition structure. Our concept of domination between two coalition structures is based on a “step-by-step” approach to describe negotiation steps concretely by restricting how coalition structures can change: when one coalition structure is changed to another one, either (i) only one merging of two separate coalitions into a coalition occurs, or (ii) only one breaking up of a coalition into two separate coalitions happens. As applications of our stability notion, we show that the efficient grand coalition structure can be sequentially stable in simple partition function form games and common pool resource games.
{"title":"Sequentially Stable Coalition Structures","authors":"Yukihiko Funaki, T. Yamato","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1068625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1068625","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we examine the question of which coalition structures farsighted players form in coalition formation games with externalities. We introduce a stability concept for a coalition structure called a sequentially stable coalition structure. Our concept of domination between two coalition structures is based on a “step-by-step” approach to describe negotiation steps concretely by restricting how coalition structures can change: when one coalition structure is changed to another one, either (i) only one merging of two separate coalitions into a coalition occurs, or (ii) only one breaking up of a coalition into two separate coalitions happens. As applications of our stability notion, we show that the efficient grand coalition structure can be sequentially stable in simple partition function form games and common pool resource games.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125083056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In promotion contests or other tournament-like situations, a principal may attach some value to the highest effort expended by an agent. We show that whenever agents interact over multiple periods, awarding a head start to one of them is optimal even with completely symmetric agents. Awarding a small head start increases maximum individual effort without decreasing aggregate effort.
{"title":"Head Starts in Dynamic Tournaments?","authors":"Philipp Denter, D. Sisak","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3495187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3495187","url":null,"abstract":"In promotion contests or other tournament-like situations, a principal may attach some value to the highest effort expended by an agent. We show that whenever agents interact over multiple periods, awarding a head start to one of them is optimal even with completely symmetric agents. Awarding a small head start increases maximum individual effort without decreasing aggregate effort.","PeriodicalId":373527,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Game Theory (Topic)","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133223793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}