FOCALITY AND ASYMMETRY IN MULTI-BATTLE CONTESTS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chowdhury, Subhasish M.; Kovenock, Dan; Arjona, David Rojo; Wilcox, Nathaniel T.
• 署名单位: University of Bath; Chapman University System; Chapman University; University of North Carolina; Appalachian State University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaa130
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1593-1619
• 关键词: professionals play minimax; colonel-blotto; weakest-link; game-theory; allocation; points; attack; RESOURCES; DEFENSE; incentives

摘要

This article examines the influence of focality in Colonel Blotto games with a lottery contest success function (CSF), where the equilibrium is unique and in pure strategies. We hypothesise that the salience of battlefields affects strategic behaviour (the salient target hypothesis) and present a controlled test of this hypothesis against Nash predictions, checking the robustness of equilibrium play. When the sources of salience come from asymmetries in battlefield values or labels (as in Schelling, ), subjects over-allocate the resource to the salient battlefields relative to the Nash prediction. However, the effect is stronger with salient values. In the absence of salience, we find support for the Nash prediction.