Bargaining With Charitable Promises: True Preferences and Strategic Behavior

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Lange ◽  
Claudia Schwirplies
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
True Preferences

Some Remarks on Preference Revelation for Public Goods

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-168
Author(s):  
Domenico da Empoli
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
The People ◽  
True Preferences

Abstract This paper questions the long-established view in the Musgrave-Samuelson public goods theory about voters’ incentives to misrepresent their preferences for public goods. The arguments are structured as follows: The concept of‘democracy’ as ‘government by the people’ presupposes that voters freely express their own views in order to influence government's decisions; the idea of governments introducing demand-revealing mechanisms to detect people's ‘true’ preferences seems inconsistent with this view. Voters’ disclosure of their preferences typically is not immediately related to their tax obligations, whose enforcement takes place after approval of the budget, which makes unprofitable any strategic behavior by the voters. From an historic viewpoint, the ‘preference revelation problem’ for public goods goes back to Wicksell's essay on «A New Principle of Just Taxation» and, through Musgrave, it was conveyed to Samuelson. However, the Wicksellian statement was based on an incorrect interpretation of Mazzola's theory.

The Internet is a Semicommons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Grimmelmann
Keyword(s):  
Open Field ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Field System ◽  
Technical Features ◽  
Dynamic Interplay ◽  
Enormous Success

78 Fordham Law Review 2799 (2010)The Internet is a semicommons. Private property in servers and network links coexists with a shared communications platform. This distinctive combination both explains the Internet's enormous success and illustrates some of its recurring problems.Building on Henry Smith's theory of the semicommons in the medieval open-field system, this essay explains how the dynamic interplay between private and common uses on the Internet enables it to facilitate worldwide sharing and collaboration without collapsing under the strain of misuse. It shows that key technical features of the Internet, such as its layering of protocols and the Web's division into distinct "sites," respond to the characteristic threats of strategic behavior in a semicommons. An extended case study of the Usenet distributed messaging system shows that not all semicommons on the Internet succeed; the continued success of the Internet depends on our ability to create strong online communities that can manage and defend the infrastructure on which they rely. Private and common both have essential roles to play in that task, a lesson recognized in David Post's and Jonathan Zittrain's recent books on the Internet.

Executive Veto Power and Constitutional Design

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-113
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Model ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Veto Power ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Executive Veto

A “separation of powers” system provides for an executive and legislature with independent powers. While only the legislature can pass bills, executive approval is commonly required for them to become law. The executive exercises veto power by withholding approval. Executive veto power is simple if the executive can only approve a bill or reject it in its entirety; it is constructive if he can amend a bill in certain ways. It is qualified if the legislature can override a veto; it is unqualified otherwise. Any such system creates a gamelike strategic interaction between the legislature and executive. The chapter provides an expository sketch of a variety of such veto games. The analysis is based on a one-dimensional spatial model given three different behavioral assumptions: sincere behavior by both the legislature and executive, strategic behavior by both, and strategic behavior coupled with the possibility of a credible veto threat by the executive. Several extensions and qualifications are briefly noted.

Reputation and Gossip in Game Theory

2019 ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Charles Roddie
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Third Party ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Behavior ◽  
Future Behavior ◽  
The Game Theory ◽  
Shed Light

When interacting with others, it is often important for you to know what they have done in similar situations in the past: to know their reputation. One reason is that their past behavior may be a guide to their future behavior. A second reason is that their past behavior may have qualified them for reward and cooperation, or for punishment and revenge. The fact that you respond positively or negatively to the reputation of others then generates incentives for them to maintain good reputations. This article surveys the game theory literature which analyses the mechanisms and incentives involved in reputation. It also discusses how experiments have shed light on strategic behavior involved in maintaining reputations, and the adequacy of unreliable and third party information (gossip) for maintaining incentives for cooperation.

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