Contest theory
How do contest rules shape effort, predation and conflict?
Many allocation problems involve agents competing for a prize, a patent, a territory or a contract. These situations can be modelled as contests and studied using game theory. My work examines how contest rules, resource asymmetries and dynamic constraints shape effort, predatory behaviour, sabotage and the prospects for peace:
- How do contest technologies and centralized or decentralized designs affect effort, payoffs and strategic behaviour?
- How do unequal resources, endogenous strength and the possibility of bankruptcy change incentives across stages of a contest?
- When do competitive incentives lead to predation, sabotage or war—and when can peaceful agreements be sustained?
Current research More recently, I study why forecasters may make extreme or unlikely predictions that, if correct, can catapult them to prominence.
Meritocracy, incentives and stable organizations
How should cooperative organizations reward individual contributions?
Meritocracy can strengthen incentives, increase output and promote human-capital accumulation, but more meritocracy is not always socially desirable. Excessive reliance on performance may induce too much effort, encourage sabotage or lead workers to vote for reward schemes that benefit them individually but are inefficient. Organizational stability also depends on whether members can commit to a distribution rule; nevertheless, stable structures may accommodate both meritocratic and egalitarian groups.
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Majority voting and group formation
Can collective decisions be supported by the people who are directly affected by them?
Collective-choice rules can sometimes combine efficiency, majority support and stability. In the allocation of public facilities, it is possible to choose locations and assign users so that the selected location is supported by its users and no individual wishes to move to another group. More generally, collective decisions can be designed so that each component is ratified by the group of citizens directly concerned with it.
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Fair allocation with indivisible goods
Which principles of fairness survive when goods cannot be divided or when the population changes?
Many classical fairness results become fragile when individuals may receive several indivisible goods. In general, efficiency and population monotonicity cannot always be achieved simultaneously. However, positive results can be recovered in particular environments—for example, when there is only one indivisible good or when preferences satisfy appropriate substitutability conditions.
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