Asymmetries in the abilities of contestants that engage in a protracted competition appear to be more common than symmetric competitions. Why doesn’t the weaker player concede immediately? This paper introduces a model based on the idea that a “war” can only be won by winning a series of battles. There are two kinds of stationary equilibria, one with fighting to completion, the other with a ces...

The present study investigated the effect of framing and legal role on the propensity to settle by litigants in simulated legal disputes. Participants were given four different scenarios which factorially combined legal role, plaintiff vs. defendant, and frame, positive or gain vs. negative or loss. Participants also indicated their subjective probability of winning. The results indicated that ...

In this research, we empirically investigate the payoff of aggressive bidding in an online auction. To address our research question, we use a unique and very rich dataset containing actual market transaction data for approximately 7,000 pay-per-bid auctions. Our research design allows us to isolate the impact of bidding aggressively in an attempt to signal a high valuation on the probability t...

We study equilibrium in a multistage race in which players compete in a sequence of simultaneous move component contests. Players may win a prize for winning each component contest, as well as a prize for winning the overall race. Each component contest is an all-pay auction with complete information. We characterize the unique subgame perfect equilibrium analytically and demonstrate that it ex...

We consider the question whether top tennis players in a top tournament (Wimbledon) employ an optimal (efficient) service strategy. We show that top players do not, in general, follow an optimal strategy. The estimated inefficiencies are not large: the inefficiency regarding winning a point on service is on average 1.1% for men and 2.0% for women. Thus, by adopting an efficient service strategy...

Three experiments tested the exemplar cuing and frequency format accounts of how the ‘imaginability’ of low-probability events is enhanced. The experiments manipulated imaginability by varying the statistics used to describe negative (e.g. being scarred as a result of laser surgery) and positive (e.g. winning a lottery) low-probability events. The results strongly supported the frequency format...

It is argued that probability should be deened implicitly by the distributions of possible measurement values characteristic of a theory. These distributions are tested by, but not deened in terms of, relative frequencies of occurrences of events of a speciied kind. The adoption of an a priori probability in an empirical investigation constitutes part of the formulation of a theory. In particul...

In this paper, we present a probabilistic analysis of Boolean games. We consider the class of Boolean games where pay functions are given by random Boolean formulas. This permits to study certain properties of this class in its totality, such as the probability of existence of a winning strategy, including its asymptotic behaviour. With the help of the Coq proof assistant, we develop a Coq libr...

The purpose of this paper is to give a description of a leisure time activity, in this case, an on-line fantasy baseball game, in terms of mathematical and game theory. Since the basis of computer science is mathematical theory, by thoroughly inspecting an Internet-based “fantasy” game, we can show the importance and advantages of using probability and statistical analysis as the foremost techn...

We present a structural model of political advertising in equilibrium. Candidates choose advertising across media markets in order to maximize the probability of winning the national election. The voter model takes the form of an aggregate random coefficients discrete choice model in which advertising affects a voter's incentive to vote for either candidate or not to vote at all. We estimate th...