Pub Date : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-07-16DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.002
Amanda Chuan , Hanzhe Zhang
We theoretically and experimentally investigate psychological motivations behind pay-it-forward behavior. We construct a psychological game-theoretic model that incorporates altruism, inequity aversion, and indirect reciprocity following Rabin (1993), Fehr and Schmidt (1999), and Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger (2004). We test this model using games in which players choose to give to strangers, potentially after receiving a gift from an unrelated benefactor. Our experiment reveals that altruism and indirect reciprocity spur people to pay kind actions forward, informing how kindness begets further kindness. However, inequity aversion hinders giving even when giving will allow one's kindness to be paid forward. Our paper informs how kind behaviors get passed on among parties that never directly interact, which has implications for the formation of social norms and behavioral conduct within workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities.
{"title":"Pay it forward: Theory and experiment","authors":"Amanda Chuan , Hanzhe Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We theoretically and experimentally investigate psychological motivations behind pay-it-forward behavior. We construct a psychological game-theoretic model that incorporates altruism, inequity aversion, and indirect reciprocity following <span><span>Rabin (1993)</span></span>, <span><span>Fehr and Schmidt (1999)</span></span>, and <span><span>Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger (2004)</span></span>. We test this model using games in which players choose to give to strangers, potentially after receiving a gift from an unrelated benefactor. Our experiment reveals that altruism and indirect reciprocity spur people to pay kind actions forward, informing how kindness begets further kindness. However, inequity aversion hinders giving even when giving will allow one's kindness to be paid forward. Our paper informs how kind behaviors get passed on among parties that never directly interact, which has implications for the formation of social norms and behavioral conduct within workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 294-314"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144672218","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-05-30DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.05.007
Spyros Galanis
No trade theorems examine conditions under which agents cannot agree to disagree on the value of a security which pays according to some state of nature, thus preventing any mutual agreement to trade. A large literature has examined conditions which imply no trade, such as relaxing the common prior and common knowledge assumptions, as well as allowing for agents who are boundedly rational or ambiguity averse. We contribute to this literature by examining conditions on the private information of agents that reveals, or verifies, the true value of the security. We argue that these conditions can offer insights in three different settings: insider trading, the connection of low liquidity in markets with no trade, and trading using public blockchains and oracles.
{"title":"No trade under verifiable information","authors":"Spyros Galanis","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.05.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.05.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>No trade theorems examine conditions under which agents cannot agree to disagree on the value of a security which pays according to some state of nature, thus preventing any mutual agreement to trade. A large literature has examined conditions which imply no trade, such as relaxing the common prior and common knowledge assumptions, as well as allowing for agents who are boundedly rational or ambiguity averse. We contribute to this literature by examining conditions on the private information of agents that reveals, or verifies, the true value of the security. We argue that these conditions can offer insights in three different settings: insider trading, the connection of low liquidity in markets with no trade, and trading using public blockchains and oracles.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222433","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-08-11DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.010
David Piazolo, Christoph Vanberg
We investigate the effects of alternative voting rules in a three-person, two-period bargaining game with private information. A single proposer is seeking to secure agreement to a proposal under either majority or unanimity rule. Two responders have privately known disagreement payoffs. We characterize Bayesian equilibria in stagewise undominated strategies. Our central result is that responders are ‘more expensive’ under unanimity rule because they like to be perceived as high types. Inefficient delay and disagreement are more likely under unanimity rule, except under very restrictive parameter conditions. Our analysis provides a theoretical foundation for intuitions that have been stated informally before. In addition, it yields deeper insights into the underlying incentives and what they imply for optimal behavior in bargaining with private information.
{"title":"Legislative bargaining with private information: A comparison of majority and unanimity rule","authors":"David Piazolo, Christoph Vanberg","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the effects of alternative voting rules in a three-person, two-period bargaining game with private information. A single proposer is seeking to secure agreement to a proposal under either majority or unanimity rule. Two responders have privately known disagreement payoffs. We characterize Bayesian equilibria in stagewise undominated strategies. Our central result is that responders are ‘more expensive’ under unanimity rule because they like to be perceived as high types. Inefficient delay and disagreement are more likely under unanimity rule, except under very restrictive parameter conditions. Our analysis provides a theoretical foundation for intuitions that have been stated informally before. In addition, it yields deeper insights into the underlying incentives and what they imply for optimal behavior in bargaining with private information.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 499-522"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144865683","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-08-19DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.012
Segismundo S. Izquierdo , Luis R. Izquierdo
We consider sampling best response decision protocols with statistical inference in population games. Under these protocols, a revising agent observes the actions of k randomly sampled players in a population, estimates from the sample a probability distribution for the state of the population (using some inference method), and chooses a best response to the estimated distribution. We formulate deterministic approximation dynamics for these protocols. If the inference method is unbiased, strict Nash equilibria are rest points, but they may not be stable. We present tests for stability of pure equilibria under these dynamics. Focusing on maximum-likelihood estimation, we can define an index that measures the strength of each strict Nash equilibrium. In tacit coordination or weakest-link games, the stability of equilibria under sampling best response dynamics is consistent with experimental evidence, capturing the effect of strategic uncertainty and its sensitivity to the number of players and to the cost/benefit ratio.
{"title":"Statistical inference in games: Stability of pure equilibria","authors":"Segismundo S. Izquierdo , Luis R. Izquierdo","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.012","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider sampling best response decision protocols with statistical inference in population games. Under these protocols, a revising agent observes the actions of <em>k</em> randomly sampled players in a population, estimates from the sample a probability distribution for the state of the population (using some inference method), and chooses a best response to the estimated distribution. We formulate deterministic approximation dynamics for these protocols. If the inference method is unbiased, strict Nash equilibria are rest points, but they may not be stable. We present tests for stability of pure equilibria under these dynamics. Focusing on maximum-likelihood estimation, we can define an index that measures the strength of each strict Nash equilibrium. In <em>tacit coordination or weakest-link</em> games, the stability of equilibria under sampling best response dynamics is consistent with experimental evidence, capturing the effect of <em>strategic uncertainty</em> and its sensitivity to the number of players and to the cost/benefit ratio.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 622-644"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144902434","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-07-02DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.007
Daiki Kishishita , Susumu Sato
Watchdog journalism, the idea that independent media outlets monitor people in power, can be undermined when the people in power serve as news sources on which the media rely. By developing a model of media competition with a strategic news source, we show that the presence of a news source creates pro-source biases; the coexistence of neutral watchdogs and biased yes men arises as an outcome of mixed strategy equilibrium. This bias can make the presence of a news source harmful to consumers.
{"title":"Watchdog versus yes man: News source and media competition","authors":"Daiki Kishishita , Susumu Sato","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Watchdog journalism, the idea that independent media outlets monitor people in power, can be undermined when the people in power serve as news sources on which the media rely. By developing a model of media competition with a strategic news source, we show that the presence of a news source creates pro-source biases; the coexistence of neutral watchdogs and biased yes men arises as an outcome of mixed strategy equilibrium. This bias can make the presence of a news source harmful to consumers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 233-253"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144556831","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-08-27DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.008
Jian Song , Daniel Houser
We extend the war of attrition by studying three-period dynamic contest games. In our game, players can either fight against their opponents at the last period or can fight at any period. Waiting is costly. We focus on the role of waiting costs and show that the value of waiting costs is a key factor in determining the type of equilibrium in such dynamic contests. Specifically, when players are allowed to fight only at the last period, as waiting costs increase, contests end earlier, battles are less likely to occur, and the weaker player in a pair is more likely to flee. When allowing players to fight at any time, the pure-strategy Bayesian equilibrium does not exist under sufficiently high waiting costs. A lab experiment verifies most key features of our model in scenarios where players are allowed to fight only at the last period. However, unlike theoretical predictions, we find that as waiting costs increase, the duration of contests and the frequency of battles fail to drop as significantly as theory predicted. In the case where players are allowed to fight at any period, we observe a substantial increase in the frequency of battles, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the duration of contests compared to the format where players are limited to fighting during the last period. We find evidence of suboptimal behavior among players in both contest formats.
{"title":"Costly waiting in dynamic contests: Theory and experiment","authors":"Jian Song , Daniel Houser","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We extend the <em>war of attrition</em> by studying three-period dynamic contest games. In our game, players can either fight against their opponents at the last period or can fight at any period. Waiting is costly. We focus on the role of waiting costs and show that the value of waiting costs is a key factor in determining the type of equilibrium in such dynamic contests. Specifically, when players are allowed to fight only at the last period, as waiting costs increase, contests end earlier, battles are less likely to occur, and the weaker player in a pair is more likely to flee. When allowing players to fight at any time, the pure-strategy Bayesian equilibrium does not exist under sufficiently high waiting costs. A lab experiment verifies most key features of our model in scenarios where players are allowed to fight only at the last period. However, unlike theoretical predictions, we find that as waiting costs increase, the duration of contests and the frequency of battles fail to drop as significantly as theory predicted. In the case where players are allowed to fight at any period, we observe a substantial increase in the frequency of battles, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the duration of contests compared to the format where players are limited to fighting during the last period. We find evidence of suboptimal behavior among players in both contest formats.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 645-678"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144912681","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-07-23DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.003
Gabrielle Demange
Communication between individuals often involves two types of dual activities. On social media such as Facebook, for example, users produce content (posts) and pay attention to their friends' posts. These activities are dual as a user is more inclined to produce posts the more friends react to them and is more inclined to dedicate attention to a friend's posts the more numerous these posts are. This paper builds and analyzes a simple game with dual activities and dedicated attention when agents communicate through a follower-influencer network (say, X-Twitter). Equilibria can be multiple, each characterized by its attention network, which describes who pays attention to whom, resulting in a partition of cohesive subgroups who pay and receive attention from each other and do not communicate with agents in other subgroups. The stars-equilibria, where attention in each subgroup is focused on a single influencer, stand apart: activities and payoffs are high on average but unequal. Furthermore, they are the only equilibria stable to perturbations or to self-enforcing deviations from coalitions (coalition-proofness).
{"title":"Dual communication in a social network: Contributing and dedicating attention","authors":"Gabrielle Demange","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Communication between individuals often involves two types of dual activities. On social media such as Facebook, for example, users produce content (posts) and pay attention to their friends' posts. These activities are dual as a user is more inclined to produce posts the more friends react to them and is more inclined to dedicate attention to a friend's posts the more numerous these posts are. This paper builds and analyzes a simple game with dual activities and dedicated attention when agents communicate through a follower-influencer network (say, X-Twitter). Equilibria can be multiple, each characterized by its attention network, which describes who pays attention to whom, resulting in a partition of cohesive subgroups who pay and receive attention from each other and do not communicate with agents in other subgroups. The stars-equilibria, where attention in each subgroup is focused on a single influencer, stand apart: activities and payoffs are high on average but unequal. Furthermore, they are the only equilibria stable to perturbations or to self-enforcing deviations from coalitions (coalition-proofness).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 359-385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721933","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-07-29DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.006
Héctor Hermida-Rivera
In this paper, I characterize minimal stable voting rules and minimal self-stable constitutions (i.e., pairs of voting rules) for societies in which only power matters. To do so, I first let players' preference profiles over voting rules satisfy four natural axioms commonly used in the analysis of power: non-dominance, anonymity, null player, and swing player. I then provide simple notions of minimal stability and minimal self-stability, and show that the families of minimal stable voting rules and minimal self-stable constitutions are fairly small. Finally, I conclude that political parties have evolved to ensure the minimal self-stability of otherwise not minimal self-stable constitutions.
{"title":"Minimal stable voting rules","authors":"Héctor Hermida-Rivera","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper, I characterize minimal stable voting rules and minimal self-stable constitutions (i.e., pairs of voting rules) for societies in which only power matters. To do so, I first let players' preference profiles over voting rules satisfy four natural axioms commonly used in the analysis of power: non-dominance, anonymity, null player, and swing player. I then provide simple notions of minimal stability and minimal self-stability, and show that the families of minimal stable voting rules and minimal self-stable constitutions are fairly small. Finally, I conclude that political parties have evolved to ensure the minimal self-stability of otherwise not minimal self-stable constitutions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 541-553"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144865682","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-07-30DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.007
Chin-Chia Hsu , Amir Ajorlou , Ali Jadbabaie
In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model of sharing decisions among users of a Twitter-like social network. Agents have a subjective prior on an unobservable real-valued state, representing their beliefs on a topic that is subject to a binary action. Agents cast their binary action, matching the sign of the state. Before the action stage, a small fraction of agents receive a piece of news which impacts their beliefs. Those who receive the news update their belief and make a decision as to whether to share the news with their followers in order to influence their beliefs, and in turn their actions, given a fixed cost for sharing. We characterize the underlying news spread as an endogenous Susceptible-Infected (SI) epidemic process and derive agents' sharing decisions as well as the size of the sharing cascade at the equilibrium of the game. We show that lower credibility news can result in a larger cascade than fully credible news provided that the network connectivity surpasses a connectivity limit. We further delineate the relationship between cascade size, network connectivity, and news credibility in terms of polarization and diversity in prior beliefs: We demonstrate that increased polarization reduces the connectivity limit whereas larger in-party diversity has a non-monotone effect on the connectivity limit, which depends on both the levels of polarization and in-party diversity. Our results provide a theoretical foundation for recent empirical observations demonstrating faster and wider spread of low-credibility and false information on social networks.
{"title":"A game-theoretic model of misinformation spread on social networks","authors":"Chin-Chia Hsu , Amir Ajorlou , Ali Jadbabaie","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model of sharing decisions among users of a Twitter-like social network. Agents have a subjective prior on an unobservable real-valued state, representing their beliefs on a topic that is subject to a binary action. Agents cast their binary action, matching the sign of the state. Before the action stage, a small fraction of agents receive a piece of news which impacts their beliefs. Those who receive the news update their belief and make a decision as to whether to share the news with their followers in order to influence their beliefs, and in turn their actions, given a fixed cost for sharing. We characterize the underlying news spread as an endogenous Susceptible-Infected (SI) epidemic process and derive agents' sharing decisions as well as the size of the sharing cascade at the equilibrium of the game. We show that lower credibility news can result in a larger cascade than fully credible news provided that the network connectivity surpasses a <em>connectivity limit</em>. We further delineate the relationship between cascade size, network connectivity, and news credibility in terms of polarization and diversity in prior beliefs: We demonstrate that increased polarization reduces the connectivity limit whereas larger in-party diversity has a non-monotone effect on the connectivity limit, which depends on both the levels of polarization and in-party diversity. Our results provide a theoretical foundation for recent empirical observations demonstrating faster and wider spread of low-credibility and false information on social networks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 386-407"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144750400","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 : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-06-19DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.006
Yifan Xiong , Guopeng Li , Youze Lang
This paper investigates how a monopolist strategically acquires information from networked consumers with correlated preferences using discriminatory or uniform pricing schemes. Under uniform pricing, the optimal information acquisition problem can be efficiently solved in polynomial time by iteratively selecting consumers with the highest Katz-Bonacich centrality. By contrast, under discriminatory pricing, the problem is generally NP-hard. However, in typical networks, such as complete bipartite, core-periphery, and nested-split networks, the optimal targeted group can be characterized in a straightforward manner: the monopolist simply prioritizes consumers with higher degrees. A comparative analysis shows that the size of the optimal targeted group decreases with information cost but follows an inverted U-shape with respect to preference correlation. Allowing the monopolist to acquire information always reduces welfare under discriminatory pricing, whereas under uniform pricing, the impact is not necessarily negative.
{"title":"Pricing and information acquisition in networks","authors":"Yifan Xiong , Guopeng Li , Youze Lang","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.06.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates how a monopolist strategically acquires information from networked consumers with correlated preferences using discriminatory or uniform pricing schemes. Under uniform pricing, the optimal information acquisition problem can be efficiently solved in polynomial time by iteratively selecting consumers with the highest Katz-Bonacich centrality. By contrast, under discriminatory pricing, the problem is generally NP-hard. However, in typical networks, such as complete bipartite, core-periphery, and nested-split networks, the optimal targeted group can be characterized in a straightforward manner: the monopolist simply prioritizes consumers with higher degrees. A comparative analysis shows that the size of the optimal targeted group decreases with information cost but follows an inverted U-shape with respect to preference correlation. Allowing the monopolist to acquire information always reduces welfare under discriminatory pricing, whereas under uniform pricing, the impact is not necessarily negative.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 179-208"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471815","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}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号