Pub Date : 2025-04-24DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.008
Guy Barokas , Shmuel Nitzan
In his refined characterization of the Borda rule, Maskin (2025; forthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy) significantly employs the assumption of a continuum of voters. He concludes by posing an important open question about the possible extension of the characterization result to the case of finitely many voters. This note provides a positive response to this question, based on a novel axiom that conveys the normative appeal of continuity when applied to a discrete setting, namely, that the social rule is not overly sensitive to a small change in voters' preferences.
{"title":"Borda rule and arrow's independence condition in finite societies","authors":"Guy Barokas , Shmuel Nitzan","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In his refined characterization of the Borda rule, Maskin (2025; forthcoming in the <em>Journal of Political Economy</em>) significantly employs the assumption of a continuum of voters. He concludes by posing an important open question about the possible extension of the characterization result to the case of finitely many voters. This note provides a positive response to this question, based on a novel axiom that conveys the normative appeal of continuity when applied to a discrete setting, namely, that the social rule is not overly sensitive to a small change in voters' preferences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 175-180"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-16DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.007
Axel Anderson , Nikoloz Pkhakadze
We introduce an equilibrium model of polarizing communication between a sender and two receivers. The sender's payoff is a function of the receivers' beliefs on a binary payoff relevant variable. All agents share a common prior about this variable. But we assume disagreement about a second binary variable, which enters no utility functions. We characterize the joint distribution of receiver posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable that can be implemented. An immediate consequence of this characterization is that the sender's payoff is non-decreasing in the prior disagreement between the two receivers. We measure polarization as the sender's expectation of the absolute difference between the receivers' posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable, and solve for the maximum polarization across all message services. Given extreme prior disagreement between the receivers, we solve for the optimal message service when the sender has monotone payoffs that are bi-concave or bi-convex.
{"title":"Polarizing persuasion","authors":"Axel Anderson , Nikoloz Pkhakadze","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We introduce an equilibrium model of polarizing communication between a sender and two receivers. The sender's payoff is a function of the receivers' beliefs on a binary payoff relevant variable. All agents share a common prior about this variable. But we assume disagreement about a second binary variable, which enters no utility functions. We characterize the joint distribution of receiver posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable that can be implemented. An immediate consequence of this characterization is that the sender's payoff is non-decreasing in the prior disagreement between the two receivers. We measure <em>polarization</em> as the sender's expectation of the absolute difference between the receivers' posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable, and solve for the maximum polarization across all message services. Given extreme prior disagreement between the receivers, we solve for the optimal message service when the sender has monotone payoffs that are bi-concave or bi-convex.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 181-198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.006
Zhaotian Luo , Arturas Rozenas
We study how the speaker acquires information when they can misrepresent it in communication with the audience. In a binary action setup, we characterize the speaker's optimal information design and the parametric conditions under which the acquired information is disclosed truthfully. When the players' preferences are sufficiently misaligned, the speaker uses the same information structure as when they could not lie, and they communicate that information truthfully. By contrast, when the players' preferences are sufficiently aligned, the speaker chooses a different information structure that generates more persuasive beliefs and induces lying in equilibrium. The speaker's loss of welfare due to the lack of commitment power is more pronounced when lies are harder to detect.
{"title":"Lying in persuasion","authors":"Zhaotian Luo , Arturas Rozenas","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study how the speaker acquires information when they can misrepresent it in communication with the audience. In a binary action setup, we characterize the speaker's optimal information design and the parametric conditions under which the acquired information is disclosed truthfully. When the players' preferences are sufficiently misaligned, the speaker uses the same information structure as when they could not lie, and they communicate that information truthfully. By contrast, when the players' preferences are sufficiently aligned, the speaker chooses a different information structure that generates more persuasive beliefs and induces lying in equilibrium. The speaker's loss of welfare due to the lack of commitment power is more pronounced when lies are harder to detect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 93-112"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143845307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.004
Jaideep Roy , Bibhas Saha
When artificial intelligence (AI) displaces lower-skilled workers with higher intensity, electoral democracies may slow down automation in fear of unemployment and voter resentment. Using a Downsian model of elections where parties promise to limit automation and redistribute automation surplus, we show that when automation is highly productive democracies implement maximum automation, making all workers vulnerable to redundancy and distribute the entire surplus among the working population. Majority of the workers are gainers in the sense that their expected earnings exceed their (pre-automation) wage. When the automation surplus is low, democracies restrict automation and protect the high-skilled workers (including the median-skilled worker) but redistribute nothing to the vulnerable workers. Here, because of no compensation for redundancy all vulnerable workers become losers as their expected earnings fall below their basic wage. For highly productive automation, democracies achieve the first best worker welfare but otherwise may over- or under-provide automation.
{"title":"Democratic regulation of AI in the workplace","authors":"Jaideep Roy , Bibhas Saha","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When artificial intelligence (AI) displaces lower-skilled workers with higher intensity, electoral democracies may slow down automation in fear of unemployment and voter resentment. Using a Downsian model of elections where parties promise to limit automation and redistribute automation surplus, we show that when automation is highly productive democracies implement maximum automation, making all workers vulnerable to redundancy and distribute the entire surplus among the working population. Majority of the workers are gainers in the sense that their expected earnings exceed their (pre-automation) wage. When the automation surplus is low, democracies restrict automation and protect the high-skilled workers (including the median-skilled worker) but redistribute nothing to the vulnerable workers. Here, because of no compensation for redundancy all vulnerable workers become losers as their expected earnings fall below their basic wage. For highly productive automation, democracies achieve the first best worker welfare but otherwise may over- or under-provide automation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 113-132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143855972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-14DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.005
Sumit Goel
We study the design of effort-maximizing grading schemes between agents with private abilities. Assuming agents derive value from the information their grade reveals about their ability, we find that more informative grading schemes induce more competitive contests, i.e., contests with greater inequality across prizes. In the contest framework, we investigate the effect of manipulating individual prizes and increasing competition on expected effort, identifying conditions on ability distributions and cost functions under which these transformations may encourage or discourage effort. Our results suggest that more informative grading schemes encourage effort when agents of moderate ability are highly likely, and discourage effort when such agents are unlikely.
{"title":"Optimal grading contests","authors":"Sumit Goel","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the design of effort-maximizing grading schemes between agents with private abilities. Assuming agents derive value from the information their grade reveals about their ability, we find that more informative grading schemes induce more competitive contests, i.e., contests with greater inequality across prizes. In the contest framework, we investigate the effect of manipulating individual prizes and increasing competition on expected effort, identifying conditions on ability distributions and cost functions under which these transformations may encourage or discourage effort. Our results suggest that more informative grading schemes encourage effort when agents of moderate ability are highly likely, and discourage effort when such agents are unlikely.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 133-149"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143859759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
People behave more pro-socially when observed by others. We develop a theoretical model incorporating social distance between agent and observer and test its predictions in a field experiment with 670 high-school students. The experiment manipulated the observer's identity (friend, acquaintance, or none) and capped personal rewards. Observability increased effort, and personal rewards enhanced above-threshold effort when effort was observable. Among young adolescents, these effects were stronger when observed by an acquaintance rather than a friend. While partly exploratory, our findings suggest a positive correlation between social distance and social-image effects.
{"title":"Social image, observer identity, and crowding up","authors":"Yamit Asulin , Yuval Heller , Nira Munichor , Ro'i Zultan","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People behave more pro-socially when observed by others. We develop a theoretical model incorporating social distance between agent and observer and test its predictions in a field experiment with 670 high-school students. The experiment manipulated the observer's identity (friend, acquaintance, or none) and capped personal rewards. Observability increased effort, and personal rewards enhanced above-threshold effort when effort was observable. Among young adolescents, these effects were stronger when observed by an acquaintance rather than a friend. While partly exploratory, our findings suggest a positive correlation between social distance and social-image effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 37-54"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143825325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-11DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.010
Esteban Peralta
This paper shows that, within familiar environments with transferable utilities, the set of unmatched agents is the same across all allocations that are stable in markets with one-sided incomplete information. The result does not hold in markets without transfers.
{"title":"Lone wolves just got lonelier","authors":"Esteban Peralta","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper shows that, within familiar environments with transferable utilities, the set of unmatched agents is the same across all allocations that are stable in markets with one-sided incomplete information. The result does not hold in markets without transfers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 55-61"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143834634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.002
P. Jean-Jacques Herings , Abhimanyu Khan
We propose a decision-theoretic and cognitive-hierarchy based notion of network stability by examining the decision-making nodes' incentives to change the structure of a network by establishing/dissolving links in between them. While evaluating the desirability of initiating such changes, each node internalizes, to the extent of its limited foresight, the effect of further changes that may be induced thereafter. The nodes may exhibit heterogeneity in their level of foresight, and coalitions of nodes may collectively alter the network structure. We define a limited foresight stable set as our stability concept. The primary characteristic of this set, which always exists and is unique, is that the process of link additions/deletions always leads to networks in this set. This set may vary with both the extent and heterogeneity of the nodes' foresight, and with the possibility of coalitional deviations – so, we present “tight” sufficient conditions under which this set is independent of these considerations.
{"title":"Network stability under limited foresight","authors":"P. Jean-Jacques Herings , Abhimanyu Khan","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a decision-theoretic and cognitive-hierarchy based notion of network stability by examining the decision-making nodes' incentives to change the structure of a network by establishing/dissolving links in between them. While evaluating the desirability of initiating such changes, each node internalizes, to the extent of its limited foresight, the effect of further changes that may be induced thereafter. The nodes may exhibit heterogeneity in their level of foresight, and coalitions of nodes may collectively alter the network structure. We define a limited foresight stable set as our stability concept. The primary characteristic of this set, which always exists and is unique, is that the process of link additions/deletions always leads to networks in this set. This set may vary with both the extent and heterogeneity of the nodes' foresight, and with the possibility of coalitional deviations – so, we present “tight” sufficient conditions under which this set is independent of these considerations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 62-92"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143837996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.001
Elias Bouacida , Renaud Foucart
We study collective preferences towards the use of random procedures in allocation mechanisms. We report the results of two experiments in which subjects choose a procedure to allocate a reward to half of them. The first possibility is an explicitly random device: the outcome of a lottery. The second is an equally unpredictable procedure with an identical success rate, but without explicit randomization. We identify an aversion to lotteries, particularly when compared to procedures reminiscent of meritocratic ones. In line with the literature, we also find evidence of a preference for control in most procedures.
{"title":"Rituals of reason: Experimental evidence on the social acceptability of lotteries in allocation problems","authors":"Elias Bouacida , Renaud Foucart","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study collective preferences towards the use of random procedures in allocation mechanisms. We report the results of two experiments in which subjects choose a procedure to allocate a reward to half of them. The first possibility is an explicitly random device: the outcome of a lottery. The second is an equally unpredictable procedure with an identical success rate, but without explicit randomization. We identify an aversion to lotteries, particularly when compared to procedures reminiscent of meritocratic ones. In line with the literature, we also find evidence of a preference for control in most procedures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 23-36"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143825403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-31DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.009
Kemal Kıvanç Aköz , Emre Doğan , Onur Kesten , Danisz Okulicz
Judicial systems around the world widely differ in the degree they allow litigants to exercise their right to legal counsel. When litigants are completely free to choose their lawyers and vice versa, blocking pairs between litigants and lawyers must be eliminated leading to stable matchings. In this context, a negative externality arises: a pairing between a stronger lawyer and a litigant conflicts with the interests of the opposing litigant and his lawyer. We show that the existence of a stable matching is guaranteed whenever the case structure is dichotomous and within each class, cases are primarily differentiated by the advantage they give to one of the sides. We characterize conditions under which realized matchings can be rationalized as stable. Stable matchings always lead to negatively assortative lawyer pairings within each class. Agent-optimal stable matchings do not necessarily exist. Stable matchings are always efficient, but may not belong to the core.
{"title":"Stability as right to counsel of choice: A lawyers' matching problem","authors":"Kemal Kıvanç Aköz , Emre Doğan , Onur Kesten , Danisz Okulicz","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.03.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Judicial systems around the world widely differ in the degree they allow litigants to exercise their right to legal counsel. When litigants are completely free to choose their lawyers and vice versa, blocking pairs between litigants and lawyers must be eliminated leading to stable matchings. In this context, a negative externality arises: a pairing between a stronger lawyer and a litigant conflicts with the interests of the opposing litigant and his lawyer. We show that the existence of a stable matching is guaranteed whenever the case structure is dichotomous and within each class, cases are primarily differentiated by the advantage they give to one of the sides. We characterize conditions under which realized matchings can be rationalized as stable. Stable matchings always lead to negatively assortative lawyer pairings within each class. Agent-optimal stable matchings do not necessarily exist. Stable matchings are always efficient, but may not belong to the core.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"152 ","pages":"Pages 1-22"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143817444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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