Prisoners Dilemma

I provide an account of response-dependence and consider how the concept of joint intention and some other concepts might be explained in terms of response-dependence. 
The paper was written for the Nagel/Dworkin colloquium in 2010 and is in very rough form.  It replaces a previous version posted on Academia, which was indecipherable.

The Cyprus conflict has usually been treated as a simple Prisoner's Dilemma game in which players (i.e. leaders) are encouraged to develop cooperative policies based on the United Nations framework. However, a Prisoner's Dilemma constitutes only the first level of the Cyprus negotiations, which, in fact, more closely resemble a sequential two-level (and a simultaneous nested) game. Still, the democratic setting that prevails in Cyprus poses particular challenges, forcing leaders to apply manipulative political tactics to appease their constituencies. Taking the Cyprus negotiations' complex characteristics into consideration, this paper discusses the importance of multi-level game structure and heresthetics in the Cypriot setting. Then, an evolutionary conflict resolution model for Cyprus is presented, improving its earlier application on theoretical grounds by supporting the evolutionary model's basic premises with functionalism.

The aim of this article is to investigate the role of the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in the economic game. One widely employed paradigm in this field of experimental economic games is the prisoner's dilemma-used to examine competitive versus cooperative behaviour. In the present study a prisoner's dilemma game was ad-ministrated to individuals (N = 320), along with measures of grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and impulsivity. Specifically, our results show that vulnerable narcissism has a significant positive effect on defecting behaviors, while grandiose narcissism has a significant positive effect on cooperation in the initial round. However, while the game proceeded, grandiose narcissism started to have a positive effect on defecting behaviors too. This suggests that grandiose narcissists have, at least initially, positive qualities to them which can make them popular, but in the long run they lose their positive reputation and their likeability and willingness to cooperate decrease.

Son yıllarda Türkiye'nin hemen hemen her bölgesi kentsel dönüşüm sürecine girmiş bulunmaktadır. Söz konusu dönüşüme taraf olan ev sahipleri ve müteahhitler açısından ise bir karar alma süreci yaşanmaktadır. Bu bağlamda karar alma metotları daha iyi bir sonuç edinmek açısından faydalı olabilmektedir. Günümüzde pek çok alanda uygulama alanı giderek artan oyun teorisi yaklaşımı bu tür karar alma süreçlerinde, daha etkin bir çerçeve çizmek açısından önemlidir. Bu çalışma iki temel oyun kurgusu olan "Mahkumlar Açmazı" ve "Geyik Avı" oyunu referans alınarak kentsel dönüşüm sürecinde tarafların karar verme süreçlerinde elde edebilecekleri faydalar incelenmektedir. ABSTRACT Almost every region of Turkey has undergone an urban transformation process in recent years. For landlords and contractors who are parties to this transformation, a decision-making process is taking place. In this context, decision-making methods can be useful in terms of getting a better result. The game theory approach, which is increasingly applied in many areas today, is important for drawing a more effective framework for such decision-making processes. This study is a reference to the two basic playgrounds, "Prisoners Dilemma" and "deer hunting", and examines the benefits that the parties can achieve in decision-making during the urban transformation process.

Within Leviathan, Hobbes address what society was like before governments, in a time period he called the “State of Nature” (SoN). He equated this State as being in a “State of Warre” (SoW). In addition to this, Hobbes makes several assumptions regarding human nature which results in an atmosphere of constant fear. Because of this, Hobbes SoW, is one in which people anticipate conflict rather than being constantly in conflict.  Alongside the atmosphere of fear, the concept of ‘in foro interno’ (to endeavour peace) in turn motivates rational, self-interested, forward-thinking individuals to give up their natural Rights, submitting to a “common coercive power” who then ensures peace and protection for each person. This essay will argue, that it is only due to the assurance provided by the sovereign plus the concept of in foro interno where both prudent individuals and ‘Fooles’ understand the only, rational way to escape the SoN is to submit to an absolute sovereign, supporting this essay claim that the Leviathan is not deeply flawed.

The prisoner's dilemma plays a central, but shifting, role in Gauthier's moral theorizing. In " Morality and Advantage " it provides a model, demonstrating how morality can have seemingly contradictory properties. In Morals By Agreement, it poses a special problem for the view that moral behavior is individually rational. Authorities on game theory have subsequently disputed the idea the idea that the PD is an appropriate tool for thinking about moral theory. The first part of this paper examines the roles of the PD in Gauthier's writings. The second part outlines a project, with both descriptive and normative components, that develops the insights of " Morality and Advantage " while preserving it from the attack of the game theorists.

In Bermúdez 2013 I argued against David Lewis's well-known and widely accepted claim that Newcomb's problem and the prisoner's dilemma are really notational variants of a single problem. Mark Walker's paper in this journal (Walker 2014) takes issue with my argument. In this note I show how Walker's criticisms are misplaced. The problems with Walker’s argument point to more general and independently interesting conclusions about, first, the relation between deliberation and decision and, second, the differences between the prisoner's dilemma, which is a strategic choice problem, and Newcomb's problem, which is a parametric choice problem.

The paper provides on overview on the negotiations about a union of churches and military cooperation against the Turks respectively the Mamluks between Byzantium, Cilician Armenia and the Papacy in the 1320s and 1330s. In the final section, a simple game theoretical model is presented in order to explain the failure of these and similar attempts. The paper was orginally presented at the International Conference "The Union of Ferrara-Florence 1439-2009" in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) in 2009. Slides are online here: http://www.academia.edu/1691205/The_Crusade_as_Hope_the_Union_as_Instrument._Negotiations_on_a_Union_of_Churches_between_Byzantium_Cilician_Armenia_and_Western_Europe_in_the_1320s_and_1330s_in_German_

Moral rules allow humans to cooperate by indirect reciprocity. Yet, it is not clear which moral rules best implement indirect reciprocity and are favoured by natural selection. Previous studies either considered only public assessment, where individuals are deemed good or bad by all others, or compared a subset of possible strategies. Here we fill this gap by identifying which rules are evolutionary stable strategies (ESS) among all possible moral rules while considering private assessment. We develop an analytical model describing the frequency of long-term cooperation, determining when a strategy can be invaded by another. We show that there are numerous ESSs in absence of errors, which however cease to exist when errors are present. We identify the underlying properties of cooperative ESSs. Overall, this paper provides a first exhaustive evolutionary invasion analysis of moral rules considering private assessment. Moreover, this model is extendable to incorporate higher-order rules and other processes.

This paper explores and rejects Lewis’s claim that the prisoner's dilemma and Newcomb's problem are notational variants of each other. The first section reviews the prisoner’s dilemma and Newcomb’s problem. Section 2 explores the theoretical background to Lewis’s argument, focusing in particular on how it has been taken to support causal decision theory over standard (evidential) decision theory. Section 3 sets out Lewis’s argument. Section 4 identifies the flaw in Lewis’s argument, while section 5 compares the discussion to discussion of the so-called symmetry argument in favor of cooperating in the prisoner’s dilemma. Section 6 generalizes the discussion by showing that the two problems involve fundamentally different types of reasoning (parametric in one case, and strategic in the other), and hence that the prisoner’s dilemma cannot be a Newcomb’s problem.

What are the conditions under which transnational collective action is initiated and sustained? This paper presents a case study of General Motors Europe, where labor leaders have mobilized the workforce and bargained with management at the transnational level repeatedly over more than a decade as a response to management whipsawing and threats of plant closures. In contrast to structuralist interest-based theories of union behavior, we identify a process of 'identity work' that was necessary to sustain transnational worker cooperation.

In many cases of causal reasoning non-causal, non-directional knowledge
is drawn on and computed efficiently and consistently (see [7]), although
reasoning with this kind of knowledge seems to violate the causal Markov condition
in standard Bayes net causal models (as elaborately presented, e. g., in
[4, 5, 6, 8]). Embedding “entangled” variables in causal models renders those
models non-Markovian. Much-discussed examples are found in causal decision
theory, where modeling Newcomb-style paradoxes in standard Bayes net causal
models seemingly yields counter-intuitive solutions (see [2, 3]). In this talk, I will
focus on one distinguished type of “variable entanglement”, namely deterministic,
non-causal, and non-directional relations (called epistemic contours or ECs),
formalized as 1-1 functions in extensions of deterministic structural Bayes net
causal models, general causal knowledge patterns (CKPs).

Propagating information instantaneously, ECs exactly mark those variables in a
model that cannot be modified separately. In particular, interventions will not
determine causal directionality. Introducing such contours consequently violates
the Markov assumption by invalidating the screening-off property of variables
in a Bayesian network. For consistent reasoning to remain possible, at all, the
concept of independence, as expressed in the graphical d-separation criterion, has
to be extended. An additional graphical criterion, the principle of explanatory
dominance, is needed to define under which conditions Markov can be reclaimed
and CKPs utilized for causal inference. Structure alone will not suffice for this
task – more information is needed and comes in the form of intensional defaults
and deviants as discussed, e. g., by Hitchcock ([1]). Finally, to determine in
which contexts which sub-portions of a partially directed graph support causal
inference, the concept of identifiability of causal effects (on epistemic contours)
will be modified suitably.

References:

[1] Hitchcock, Christopher. 2007. Prevention, Preemption, and the Principle of Sufficient
Reason Philosophical Review, 116, 495–532.
[2] Lewis, David. 1979. Prisoners’ Dilemma is a Newcomb Problem. Philosophy & Public
Affairs, 8(3), 235–240.
[3] Nozick, Robert. 1969. Newcomb’s Problem and Two principles of Choice. Pages
114–146 in: Rescher, Nicholas (ed), Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel. Dordrecht:
Reidel.
[4] Pearl, Judea. 1995. Causal Diagrams for Empirical Research. Biometrika, 82(4), 669–
688.
[5] ——– 2000. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge University Press.
[6] Spirtes, Peter, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines. 2000. Causation, Prediction, and
Search. Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning. MIT Press.
[7] Williamson, Jon. 2009. Probabilistic Theories. In: The Oxford Handbook of Causation,
Chap. 9, pages 185–212. Oxford University Press.
[8] Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation
(Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science). Oxford University Press.

We study the emergence of norms of cooperation in experimental economies populated by strangers interacting indefinitely and lacking formal enforcement institutions. In all treatments the efficient outcome is sustainable as an equilibrium. We address the following questions: can these economies achieve full efficiency? Which institutions for monitoring and enforcement promote cooperation? Finally, what classes of strategies are employed to achieve high efficiency? We find that, first, cooperation can be sustained even in anonymous settings; second, some type of monitoring and punishment institutions significantly promote cooperation; and, third, subjects dislike indiscriminate strategies and prefer selective strategies.

Using a species’ population to measure its conservation status, this note explores how an increase in knowledge about this status would change the public’s willingness to donate funds for its conservation. This is done on the basis that the relationship between the level of donations and a species’ conservation status satisfies stated general mathematical properties. This level of donation increases, on average, with greater knowledge of a species’ conservation status if it is endangered, but falls if it is secure. Game theory and other theory is used to show how exaggerating the degree of endangerment of a species can be counterproductive for conservation.

Download at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2200350

PASTA WARS is a four-party negotiation / conflict simulation-game, in which participants must decide recurrently whether to adopt a cooperative stance or a competitive strategy towards one another. Participants are formed into four groups, each of which manages a flour mill that is attempting to sell its produce to a single purchaser, the local pasta restaurant, over a series of rounds. Each mill’s profitability is dependent not only on its own manufacturing strategy but also on that of the three other mills. In this way, they are subtly placed in an iterated four-way Prisoner's Dilemma, and they must maneuver, in an environment of limited communication, to develop relationships with each other and to build trust as a means of enabling personal and joint gain.

This document contains all materials needed to conduct the simulation-game, as well as notes for teachers on game-management and debrief.

In addition, the document includes translations of the simulation's material into ten languages, for use with students and trainees around the world.

What is to be said about a finite iterated Prisoners' Dilemma – in which both players can count on their interactions terminating after some definite number of rounds? Suppose two players will confront one another for 100 iterations or rounds of a Prisoners' Dilemma. Both intuition and empirical results suggest that they will find it rational to pursue a conditional cooperation strategy. Yet, given the received view that rational players will defect in a single-shot Prisoners' Dilemma, there is a familiar backward induction argument that two rational players in a finite iterated dilemma will each defect in every round.

Very briefly, that argument can be expressed as follows: Rational players will defect in the last round because, in the last round, with no prospect of future rewards for cooperation or of future penalties for defection, the structure of incentives they face is the same as in the single-shot Prisoners' Dilemma. Given the expectation of last-round defection, each will defect in the next to last round. And, given the expectation of next-to-last-round defection, each rational player will defect in the next-to-next-to-last round. Since some form of this argument can be presented with respect to each round, rational players will defect in every round, including the first.

The standard method when analyzing the problem of cooperation using evolutionary game theory is to assume that people are randomly matched against each other in repeated games. In this paper we discuss the implications of allowing agents to have preferences over possible opponents. We model reputation as a noisy observation of actual propensity to cooperate and illustrate how reputation based

Traditional Game theory assumes that players are rational and only pursue strategies that maximise their own material payoffs (Binmore 1987) . However, rational players may also take into consideration whether the other players are being kind to them or are hostile towards them (Rabin 1993) . If the material payoffs are not too large then sometimes, players may choose actions where they sacrifice some of their own material payoffs to reciprocate to the kindness shown by the other player or be unkind towards players that adopt hostile strategies (Rabin 1993) . This concept of games having a fairness equilibrium was explored by (Rabin 1993) for a two-player model.

In this paper, a game between two bookmakers is analysed. The simple game involves high or low odds strategies for each bookmaker, and an inherent Prisoner’s Dilemma structure is revealed. However, this structure may be partially resolved given parametric changes in profit structures that might lead to a “Stag Hunt Game”.
An argument for possible bookmaker arbitrage is added. Although this argument is well known, it is sparsely treated in research literature. A proof of the necessity of differing beliefs between gamblers to obtain bookmaker arbitrage is added.

Didalam tulisan ini saya akan membuktikan bahawa biarpun AMANAH merupakan parti yang baru ditubuhkan,namun ia bukanlah parti murahan ataupun enteng yang boleh dipandang rendah oleh PAS. AMANAH mampu mengugat jumlah kerusi yang dimenangi oleh PAS pada pilihanraya akan datang sekiranya PAS masih enggan mengitiraf kewujudan parti baru itu.

This article explains why free trade agreements (FTAs) that are not compliant with the spirit of GATT Article XXIV’s requirement that such agreements cover “substantially all the trade” between the parties pose serious challenges for the multilateral trading system. It notes the paradoxical behavior of WTO members in continuing to negotiate such free trade agreements to the detriment of the WTO. It characterizes this paradox as a form of Prisoners’ Dilemma, in that although members would be better off pursuing trade liberalization via the WTO, their dominant strategy is to pursue FTAs. The article goes on to propose a pragmatic solution to resolve the dilemma that attempts to navigate the difficulties posed by both retrospective and prospective solutions.

This paper presents a process of constructing and testing a new theoretical model, one which explains how status differentiation affects cooperation between partners involved in one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) situations. Bridging claims from status characteristics and collective action theories, we predict that in a PD where actors are differentiated by salient status distinctions, the rate of cooperation will vary depending on the partner's status relative to the focal actor, as well as on whether it is a simultaneous or sequential game. In order to demonstrate the challenges involved in constructing and testing new models, we describe two different one-shot, two-person PD experiments, which are designed to test our predictions. We conclude with both substantive and methodological discussion.

Concerns over future oil scarcity might not be so worrying but for the high carbon content of substitutes, and the limited capacity of the atmosphere to absorb additional CO 2 from burning fuel. The paper argues that the tools of economics are helpful in understanding some of the key issues in pricing fossil fuels, the extent to which pricing can be left to markets, the need for, and design of, international agreements on corrective carbon pricing, and the potential Prisoners’ Dilemma in reaching such agreements, partly mitigated in the case of oil by current taxes and the probable incidence of carbon taxes on the oil price. The ‘Green Paradox’, in which carbon pricing exacerbates climate change, is theoretically possible, but empirically unlikely.

The rational choice analysis of legal normativity has often been associated with legal reductionism and legal conventionalism. In this paper I try to show that both accounts are defective. Instead of returning to classic conceptions of justified normativity, which are hardly consistent with rational choice analysis, I investigate a different approach to legal normativity that was originated by David Hume. Through a constructive interpretation of relevant passages in the Treatise, I seek to uncover a fictionalist interpretation of legal discourse and political conventions. This interpretation explains how legal ought’s can be inferred from political is’s: the constitutive rules of political conventions create fictional obligations through rules of inference. No fallacy is involved in this as long as we adopt a fictionalist interpretation of objective obligation-judgments. Rules of inference that allow the derivation of obligation-judgments perform an ideological function, because they conceal the fact that political conventions are self-validating. The ideological advertising of such self-validation is supplied by state apparatuses as a form to reduce in various ways policing and enforcement costs. Unlike the rule of recognition, which Hart conceives as a solution to the problem of uncertainty in the identification of primary rules, the fundamental point of self-validating political conventions and their sustaining ideological advertising is to implement social control in cost-effective ways.