Rules and games

This paper reconsiders the relationship between the rules of a game and its outcomes. We develop a notion of rule reform that leads to the selection of Pareto improved equilibria points. We then apply this notion to a series of naturally occurring fishing rules, including examples from Malaysia, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Canada. We show that reforming a game is conceptually akin to reforming an economy.     

Returns to effort in rent-seeking games

In the traditional formulation of rent-seeking games, increasing returns to effort are characterized by an exponent r>1. However, when the value of the rent is normalized to 1, the players’ effort levels A and B will typically be less than 1. Thus, when A<1 and r>1, the value of A ^r decreases as r increases, contradicting the interpretation of r>1 as representing increasing returns to effort. This apparent defect in the mathematization of the problem seems to suggest that a different interpretation of r is required whenever A<1, upsetting the uniformity and elegance of the model. In this short note, we demonstrate that the perceived problem is illusory, and that the usual interpretation of r is satisfactory for all values of A.     

Risk aversion in two-period rent-seeking games

This work analyzes a two-period rent-seeking game, with the aim of studying the effect of risk aversion on the optimal choices made by the rent-seekers. We first prove that the equilibrium in two-period rent-seeking games always is unique. The analysis also shows that more risk aversion reduces the investment in the rent-seeking game in a two-period framework without introducing the additional condition of prudence, required in one-period models. Similarly, the introduction of a risky rent, instead of a given rent, implies, in the two-period framework, a reduction in investment under the condition that the rent-seekers are risk averse. Moreover, with risk aversion, larger first-period wealth increases investment in the rent-seeking game and larger second-period wealth reduces it. When both first-period and second-period wealth increase, investment in the rent-seeking game declines if the rent-seeker is risk averse and imprudent. Lastly, when a risky level of second-period wealth is introduced, the rent-seeker increases (reduces) investment in the rent-seeking game if he is risk averse and prudent (imprudent).

     

Risk-aversion and prudence in rent-seeking games

This paper considers a common n-agent symmetric rent-seeking game. It derives conditions so that risk-aversion and risk always decrease rent-seeking efforts. These conditions hold for any regular contest success function when risk-averse rent-seekers are also prudent. Under n=2, prudence is a necessary and sufficient condition for risk-aversion to decrease rent-seeking efforts compared to risk-neutrality. An intuition for this result is given based on a self-protection model.     

Governance as a strategy in state-of-nature games

Public choice scholars routinely claim that coercion can be used to solve the social dilemma. However, while social contract theorists have frequently described state-of-nature societies using game theory, they have not used game theory to show how coercive action within such societies can improve outcomes. Here I operationalize the concepts of coercion and governance within a Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) framework; governance is operationalized as coercion to compliance, and to adopt a coercive strategy is to impose a strategy choice upon another player. I show that, under certain conditions, adding governance strategies to a noncoercive one-shot PD game can improve outcomes.     

The strongly stable core in weighted voting games

The problems associated with the concept of the core in spatial voting games such as non-existence and instability are well documented. The structurally stable core, presented by Schofield, attempts to resolve these problems by looking at the subset of the core which is still nonempty after a small change in voter preferences. Although this concept, combined with the adoption of supramajoritarian voting rules and weighted voting games, may very well explain the observed stability in reality, it may not be suitable for certain coalition situations. This article proposes a new solution concept, the strongly stable core. The conditions for the existence and the potential location of the strongly stable core are then explored and compared with those of the structurally stable core.     

A general analysis of rent-seeking games

In this paper we reconsider the basic model of “efficient rent seeking.” We stress the importance of the shape of the players' reaction curve in order to understand the impact of the technology of rent-seeking on the structure of the outcome of the game. We give a complete characterization of the pure strategy equilibria. Moreover, the possibility of preemption by a Stakelberg leader is discussed according to the nature of the technology of rent-seeking available to the agents.     

Strategic Involuntary Teacher Transfers and Teacher Performance: Examining Equity and Efficiency

Despite claims that school districts need flexibility in teacher assignment to allocate teachers more equitably across schools and improve district performance, the power to involuntarily transfer teachers across schools remains hotly contested. Little research has examined involuntary teacher transfer policies or their effects on schools, teachers, or students. This article uses administrative data from Miami‐Dade County Public Schools to investigate the implementation and effects of the district's involuntary transfer policy, including which schools transferred and received teachers, which teachers were transferred, what kinds of teachers replaced them in their former schools, and how their performance—as measured by their work absences and value‐added in math and reading—compared before and after the transfer. We find that, under the policy, principals in the lowest performing schools identified relatively low‐performing teachers for transfer who, based on observable characteristics, would have been unlikely to leave on their own. Consistent with an equity improvement, we find that involuntarily transferred teachers were systematically moved to higher performing schools and generally were outperformed by the teachers who replaced them. Efficiency impacts are mixed; although transferred teachers had nearly two fewer absences per year in their new positions, transferred teachers continued to have low value‐added in their new schools.     

Cooperation among egoists in Prisoners' Dilemma and Chicken games

Axelrod has developed an evolutionary approach to the study of repeated games and applied that approach to the Prisoners' Dilemma. We apply this approach, with some modifications in the treatment of clustering, to a game that has the Prisoners' Dilemma and Chicken as special cases, to analyze how the evolution of cooperation differs in the two games. We find that the main barrier to the evolution of cooperation in Chicken is that cooperation may not always be correctly thought of as socially optimal, but that strong forces do push the players toward socially optimal action. We derive some of the results on mixed populations for any game with pairwise interaction.     

Inequity and risk aversion in sequential public good games

Behavioral hypotheses have recently been introduced into public-choice theory (Ostrom in American Political Science Review 92:1–22, 1998). Nevertheless, the individual intrinsic preferences which drive decisions in social dilemmas have not yet been empirically identified. This paper asks whether risk and inequity preferences are behind agents’ behavior in a sequential public good game. The experimental results show that risk aversion is negatively correlated with the contribution decision of first movers. Second movers who are averse to advantageous inequity free-ride less and reciprocate more than do others. Our results emphasize the importance of strategic uncertainty for the correct understanding of which preferences influence cooperation in social dilemmas.     

The politics of disgruntlement: Nonvoting and defection among supporters of nomination losers, 1968–1984

This paper focuses on the effect of disgruntlement among those primary voters who supported U.S. presidential nomination losers. It analyzes the general election voting behavior of primary voters in the last five presidential elections in order to determine if differences exist between those supporters of the winning nominee in each party and backers of other candidates who also sought the nomination. A multivariate analysis of the determinants of voter turnout shows significant results only for the Democrats in 1972, when primary voters who supported candidates other than George McGovern were more likely to abstain in the general election. Taking into account the option of defecting to another party in November, both parties appear to have been plagued by a considerable amount of disloyalty on the part of supporters of candidates who failed to win the nomination, although for the Republicans this type of response is confined to the 1980 election. The existence of a third party or independent candidacy may be an important variable influencing the behavior of these disgruntled primary voters.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 30–September 2, 1984.     

Markov perfect equilibrium in multi-period games between sponsor and bureau

We formulate a simple model of the interaction between a sponsor and a bureau. The sponsor sets the bureau's budget while the bureau decides on how much to spend on slack. We compute numerically Markov perfect equilibria of multi-period games where the agents move alternately and apply Markov strategies. Both agents are worse off compared to the one-period game with simultaneous moves. As the discount factors increase, the equilibrium outcome becomes less cooperative in nature.