Pub Date : 2025-08-18DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.006
Petros G. Sekeris
In this article we explore how propaganda relates to conflict initiation. In the presence of propaganda, if conflict is highly destructive, parties invest in armaments to improve their share of the pie at the negotiation table. If conflict is lowly destructive, peace is never reached and arming is implemented to boost the troops' morale and fighting efficiency. For intermediate destruction levels, the game only admits mixed strategy equilibria where peace and conflict occur probabilistically. A world without propaganda Pareto-dominates one where information can be manipulated. Although lowly destructive conflicts are conducive to war, arming can pacify the situation by giving rise to mixed strategy equilibria where peace is played with strictly positive probability. Countries are shown to have incentives to invest in propaganda despite the fact that war will then occur with strictly positive probability.
{"title":"Propaganda and conflict","authors":"Petros G. Sekeris","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this article we explore how propaganda relates to conflict initiation. In the presence of propaganda, if conflict is highly destructive, parties invest in armaments to improve their share of the pie at the negotiation table. If conflict is lowly destructive, peace is never reached and arming is implemented to boost the troops' morale and fighting efficiency. For intermediate destruction levels, the game only admits mixed strategy equilibria where peace and conflict occur probabilistically. A world without propaganda Pareto-dominates one where information can be manipulated. Although lowly destructive conflicts are conducive to war, arming can pacify the situation by giving rise to mixed strategy equilibria where peace is played with strictly positive probability. Countries are shown to have incentives to invest in propaganda despite the fact that war will then occur with strictly positive probability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 569-585"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144887014","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 : 2025-08-18DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.004
Guy Holburn , Davin Raiha
Organized public demonstrations of voter support for policy issues through rallies and petitions are mechanisms by which interest groups sometimes seek to influence political decision-making. We develop a voter-participation model of an interest group's strategic decision to publicly mobilize supportive voters through either a petition with zero participation cost or through a public rally with positive participation cost. Our model shows that voter mobilization can be influential when elected politicians are sufficiently uncertain about two dimensions of voters' preferences, the breadth of support for the issue and the saliency of the issue. The distribution of voter preferences – defined by the numbers of policy supporters and opposers and election vote-switchers and non-switchers – determines whether low or high participation-cost forms of mobilization are optimal. The model's predictions are consistent with recent mobilization campaigns organized by a range of interest groups, such as firms, environmental activists, and racial justice advocates.
{"title":"Strategic mobilization of voters","authors":"Guy Holburn , Davin Raiha","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Organized public demonstrations of voter support for policy issues through rallies and petitions are mechanisms by which interest groups sometimes seek to influence political decision-making. We develop a voter-participation model of an interest group's strategic decision to publicly mobilize supportive voters through either a petition with zero participation cost or through a public rally with positive participation cost. Our model shows that voter mobilization can be influential when elected politicians are sufficiently uncertain about two dimensions of voters' preferences, the breadth of support for the issue and the saliency of the issue. The distribution of voter preferences – defined by the numbers of policy supporters and opposers and election vote-switchers and non-switchers – determines whether low or high participation-cost forms of mobilization are optimal. The model's predictions are consistent with recent mobilization campaigns organized by a range of interest groups, such as firms, environmental activists, and racial justice advocates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"154 ","pages":"Pages 1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145011141","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 : 2025-08-14DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.005
Peter Bils, Federica Izzo
We study strategic policy experimentation by an incumbent politician when voters care about both policy and the candidates' valence. In our model, the voter does not know the location of her ideal policy and learns via experience, in turn, the officeholder uses policymaking to control voter learning. The incumbent thus faces a trade-off between implementing a policy close to his own ideal point, or one that induces the optimal amount of voter learning to win reelection. In equilibrium, how the incumbent solves the trade-off depends on his expected valence. We find that a trailing incumbent sometimes implements a safer policy than he would absent electoral incentives, despite needing to generate new information to win the election. Furthermore, increasing the incumbent's expected valence (and thus electoral advantage) can motivate him to gamble more in equilibrium. However, this relationship between electoral security and experimentation depends crucially on the amount of uncertainty on the valence dimension.
{"title":"Policy gambles and valence in elections","authors":"Peter Bils, Federica Izzo","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study strategic policy experimentation by an incumbent politician when voters care about both policy and the candidates' valence. In our model, the voter does not know the location of her ideal policy and learns via experience, in turn, the officeholder uses policymaking to control voter learning. The incumbent thus faces a trade-off between implementing a policy close to his own ideal point, or one that induces the optimal amount of voter learning to win reelection. In equilibrium, how the incumbent solves the trade-off depends on his expected valence. We find that a trailing incumbent sometimes implements a safer policy than he would absent electoral incentives, despite needing to generate new information to win the election. Furthermore, increasing the incumbent's expected valence (and thus electoral advantage) can motivate him to gamble more in equilibrium. However, this relationship between electoral security and experimentation depends crucially on the amount of uncertainty on the valence dimension.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 523-540"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144865684","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 : 2025-08-12DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.002
Jonathan Newton, Miharu Naono
Maxmin decision making can take place at an individual or a coalitional level. We allow evolution to choose between the two, determining the relative shares of individual and coalitional decision making. We consider factors that favor or disfavor the evolution of coalitionality and apply our framework to social dilemmas, oligopolistic price competition and voting on committees.
{"title":"Maxmin, coalitions and evolution","authors":"Jonathan Newton, Miharu Naono","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Maxmin decision making can take place at an individual or a coalitional level. We allow evolution to choose between the two, determining the relative shares of individual and coalitional decision making. We consider factors that favor or disfavor the evolution of coalitionality and apply our framework to social dilemmas, oligopolistic price competition and voting on committees.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 474-498"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144841074","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 : 2025-08-12DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.011
Yangbo Song
I study information aggregation among opinion leaders, who have access to private information, observe their predecessor's move, and care about both taking a correct action and maximizing the measure of followers. Potential followers are uninformed agents who care solely about the truth and choose to agree with either the current opinion leader or their predecessor. I find that the distinct incentive of an opinion leader to disagree with their predecessor, although encouraging every individual opinion leader to rely more on their private signal, actually exacerbates herding asymptotically in equilibrium. The learning patterns remain robust and lead to a number of practical implications in richer strategic environments. For instance, social learning becomes less precise when opinion leaders observe more predecessors; informational crowding-out could emerge between opinion leaders and agents if the latter became privately informed; etc.
{"title":"Social learning among opinion leaders","authors":"Yangbo Song","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>I study information aggregation among opinion leaders, who have access to private information, observe their predecessor's move, and care about both taking a correct action and maximizing the measure of followers. Potential followers are uninformed agents who care solely about the truth and choose to agree with either the current opinion leader or their predecessor. I find that the distinct incentive of an opinion leader to disagree with their predecessor, although encouraging every individual opinion leader to rely more on their private signal, actually exacerbates herding asymptotically in equilibrium. The learning patterns remain robust and lead to a number of practical implications in richer strategic environments. For instance, social learning becomes less precise when opinion leaders observe more predecessors; informational crowding-out could emerge between opinion leaders and agents if the latter became privately informed; etc.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 451-473"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144830190","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 : 2025-08-11DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.009
Paula Onuchic
An advisor discloses evidence about an object to a potential buyer, who doesn't know the object's value or the profitability of its sale (the advisor's motives). I characterize optimal disclosure rules that balance two goals: maximizing the overall probability of sale, and steering sales from lower- to higher-profitability objects. I consider the implications of a regulation that forces the advisor to always reveal her motives to the buyer. I show that whether such policies induce the advisor to disclose more evidence about the object's value hinges on the curvature of the buyer's demand for the object. This result refines our understanding of effective regulation of advisor-advisee communication with and without commitment.
{"title":"Advisors with hidden motives","authors":"Paula Onuchic","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.07.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>An advisor discloses evidence about an object to a potential buyer, who doesn't know the object's value or the profitability of its sale (the advisor's motives). I characterize optimal disclosure rules that balance two goals: maximizing the overall probability of sale, and steering sales from lower- to higher-profitability objects. I consider the implications of a regulation that forces the advisor to always reveal her motives to the buyer. I show that whether such policies induce the advisor to disclose more evidence about the object's value hinges on the curvature of the buyer's demand for the object. This result refines our understanding of effective regulation of advisor-advisee communication with and without commitment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 431-450"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144828240","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 : 2025-08-11DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.001
Steven Kivinen
We define two belief-free notions of coalitional non-manipulability that rule out coalitions in which some agents are indifferent. Strong robust group strategy-proofness typically yields negative results as it often rules out desirable rules. Semi-strong robust group strategy-proofness permits desirable rules in some environments. The differences between these properties highlight a crucial link between standard truthtelling properties: all members of a successful deviating coalition believe the outcome changes, and indifferent members believe they are essential to implement the change.
{"title":"Robust group manipulation with indifferences","authors":"Steven Kivinen","doi":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We define two belief-free notions of coalitional non-manipulability that rule out coalitions in which some agents are indifferent. <em>Strong robust group strategy-proofness</em> typically yields negative results as it often rules out desirable rules. <em>Semi-strong robust group strategy-proofness</em> permits desirable rules in some environments. The differences between these properties highlight a crucial link between standard truthtelling properties: all members of a successful deviating coalition believe the outcome changes, and indifferent members believe they are essential to implement the change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48291,"journal":{"name":"Games and Economic Behavior","volume":"153 ","pages":"Pages 554-568"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144878204","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 : 2025-08-11DOI: 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":"2025-08-11","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 : 2025-07-30DOI: 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":"2025-07-30","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 : 2025-07-29DOI: 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":"2025-07-29","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}
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