Timing Games in Economics

这个项目探索经济学和博弈论中的时机问题。第一部分涉及计时游戏--玩家只需决定何时停止的动态游戏。在经典的消耗战中，较晚的停止者享有更大的回报，而在抢先游戏中，相反的情况成立。虽然文献可以追溯到1950年的S，但只有这些极端的案例被分析过。但在大多数经济背景下，成为第一或最后都不是人们所希望的。这一部分介绍并充实了这类更大的计时博弈，其报酬一般依赖于排名。该分析使用了经济学中新颖的工具，因为它开启了完全正向函数理论。第二个计时项目分析了政治经济学中的一个特定计时博弈。核心投票理论的最新发展表明，陪审团的一致裁决是低效的。这一部分将陪审团的决定重塑为面临决定成本的个人投票的动态故事，而不是一次性投票。简而言之，如果拖延造成伤害，那么一致同意就是信息最优规则。出现的是一个丰富而可信的故事，讲述了个人如何通过坚持(就像动态拍卖理论中的那样)来表明自己信息的力量，但后来又愿意改变投票立场，模仿其他人(与拍卖理论非常不同)。最后一个政治经济学时机选择项目涉及决策理论。也就是说，在英国和加拿大等议会民主国家，现任政府有权在任期届满前的任何时候举行选举。这个项目为政府的学习问题建立了一个新的连续时间贝叶斯模型；初步测试显示，与英国选举数据有很好的预测性匹配。这一理论的灵感来自于如何为金融领域的看跌期权定价这一悬而未决的问题；然而，选举时机是一种可再生的看跌期权。虽然前两个子项目纯粹是理论上的，但这一部分也设想了数字的一面，以及一些匹配。该项目提供了一系列主要是实质性和跨学科的进展。第一个项目提供了对“早起的鸟儿有虫吃，但第一只鸟没有”的模型的一般分析。这应该在社会科学中产生广泛的影响和应用--从市场进入和投资决策(产业组织)，到股市泡沫中的行为(金融)，或者时尚迟到的现象，或者加入时尚(社会学)。由于有关时机的决定往往是最简单的行业数据，可以准确地观察到，这些应用程序应该有很多经验内容。陪审团项目反驳了最近一个有影响力的理论论点，即一致通过的陪审团裁决是次要的。分析还应该引入一个简单的框架，用于思考委员会中代价高昂的决策。选举时机项目展示了如何将金融理论的见解运用到政治经济学中。它应该为关于新民主国家宪法改革的辩论提供信息，突出没有固定选举周期的在位优势。

This project explores issues of timing in economics and game theory. The first part concerns timing games - dynamic games where players need only decide when to stop. In the classic War of Attrition, later stoppers enjoy greater payoffs, while the reverse holds in the Pre-emption Game. While the literature dates back to the 1950's, only these extreme cases have been analyzed. But in most economic contexts, being first or last is not desired. This part introduces and fleshes out this larger class of timing games with general rank-dependent rewards. The analysis employs tools novel to economics, as it turns on the theory of Totally Positive functions. A second timing project analyzes a specific timing game in political economy. Recent developments in pivot voting theory suggest that unanimous jury verdicts are inefficient. This part recasts the jury decision not as a one-shot vote, but as a dynamic story of voting by individuals facing decision costs. Simply put, if delay hurts, then unanimity is the informationally optimal rule. What emerges is a rich and plausible story of how individuals' signal the strength of their information by holding out (as in dynamic auction theory), but later on are willing to switch sides of the vote parroting others (quite unlike auction theory). A final political economy timing project concerns decision theory. Namely, in parliamentary democracies like Britain and Canada, the incumbent government has the option to call an election any time before its term expires. This project sets up a novel continuous time Bayesian model of the government's learning problem; preliminary tests reveal a good predictive match against British election data. The theory developed is inspired by the open problem of how to price put options in finance; however, electoral timing is a renewable put option. While the first two subprojects are purely theoretical, this part also envisions a numerical side, as well as some matching. This project offers a range of mostly substantive and cross-disciplinary advances. The first project provides a general analysis of models where "the early bird gets the worm, but the first one does not." This should have a wide range of broad impacts and applications across the social sciences - from market entry and investment decisions (industrial organization), to behavior in stock market bubbles (finance), or the phenomenon of being fashionably late, or joining a fashion (sociology). Since decisions about timing are often the easiest bits of industry data that can be observed without error, these applications should have much empirical content. The jury project counters a recent influential theoretical arguments for the inferiority of unanimous jury verdicts. The analysis should also introduce a simple framework for thinking about costly decision-making in committees. The election timing project shows how to use insights from finance theory in political economy. It should inform the debate on constitutional reform in new democracies, highlighting the incumbent advantage without fixed election cycles.