Citizen-candidates,lobbies, and strategic campaigning

We study a spatial model of political competition in which potential candidates need a fixed amount of money from lobbies to enter an election. We show that the set of pure strategy Nash equilibria in which lobbies finance candidates whose policies they prefer among the set of entrants coincides with the set of Nash equilibria with weakly less than two entering candidates. Fixing lobbies’ preferences, if the total amount of money held by lobbies is finite, there exists some minimal distance between the two candidates’ positions. This minimal distance is a bound for all such Nash equilibria and is independent of the distribution of voters’ preferences. I would like to thank John Duggan, Al Slivinski, and William Thomson for useful comments and suggestions. Dan Kovenock and two anonymous referees also provided detailed comments and pointed out several errors. All errors are my own.     

Strategic planning, strategic management, strategic foresight: The seminal work of H. Igor Ansoff

H. Igor Ansoff was the prominent reference in the corporate strategy field, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. His bestseller, Corporate Strategy, was the first to give a conceptual framework and a tool box to top managers, consultants and scholars. Recognized as the real pioneer of the field, he was seen by Henry Mintzberg as also the leader of the strategic planning school. The aim of this short article is to show that he was also the father of strategic management and a leader who gave an impressive set of concepts and ideas to promote an integrative and flexible view of strategic planning, strategic foresight, organizational structures and processes.     

Informational externalities,strategic delay,and optimal investment subsidies

Abstract This paper examines optimal government policy when private investment generates information, but investors cannot internalize the informational value their actions have to others. Equilibrium exhibits inefficient delay, as investors adopt a wait‐and‐see approach. The government can alter incentives via an investment subsidy, but complications arise, since future subsidies may induce investors to disregard current policy initiatives. The paper shows that the government achieves its desired outcome only when the the investment subsidy is financed by a non‐distortionary, lump‐sum tax. When taxation is distortionary, the government faces a time inconsistency problem that may prevent effective policy.     

The strategic equivalence of rent-seeking, innovation, and patent-race games

We establish the strategic equivalence of a variety of rent-seeking contests, innovation tournaments, and patent-race games. The results allow us to disentangle negative and positive externalities, and to apply theorems and results intended for rent-seeking games to other games, and vice versa. We conclude with several examples that highlight the practical utility of our results.     

Pricing, learning, and strategic behavior in a single-sale model

Summary. We analyze an infinite horizon model where a seller who owns an indivisible unit of a good for sale has incomplete information about the state of the world that determines not only the demand she faces but also her own valuation for the good. Over time, she randomly meets potential buyers who may have incentives to manipulate her learning process strategically. We show that i) the seller's incentives to post a high price and to experiment are not necessarily monotonic in the information conveyed by a buyer's rejection; and ii) as the discount factors tend to one, there are equilibria where the seller always ends up selling the good at an ex-post individually rational price. Received: January 6, 1999; revised version: July 15, 2000     

Privatization, strategic foreign direct investment and host-country welfare

Recent evidence shows that developing countries and transition economies are increasingly privatizing their public firms and at the same time experiencing rapid growth of inward foreign direct investment (FDI). We show that there is a two-way causality between privatization and greenfield FDI. Privatization increases the incentive for FDI, which, in turn, increases the incentive for privatization compared to the situation of no FDI. The optimal degree of privatization depends on the cost difference of the firms, and on the foreign firm's mode of entry.     

Sampling equilibrium, with an application to strategic voting

We suggest an equilibrium concept for a strategic model with a large number of players in which each player observes the actions of only a small number of the other players. The concept fits well situations in which each player treats his sample as a prediction of the distribution of actions in the entire population, and responds optimally to this prediction. We apply the concept to a strategic voting model and investigate the conditions under which a centrist candidate can win the popular vote although his strength in the population is smaller than the strengths of the right and left candidates.     

Competition,strategic delegation and delay in technology adoption

This paper examines how strategic managerial delegation affects firms' timing of adoption of a new technology under different modes of product market competition. It demonstrates that strategic delegation has differential impacts on adoption dates under Cournot and Bertrand competitions. Strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes always leads to early adoption in markets with Bertrand competition compared to that under no-delegation, but not necessarily so in markets with Cournot competition. It also shows that under strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption occurs earlier (later) in markets with Cournot competition than in markets with Bertrand competition, if the degree of product differentiation is high (low). In contrast, under strategic delegation with ‘relative-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption dates do not differ across markets with different modes of competition. It also analyses implications of firms' choice over types of managerial incentive schemes on the speed of diffusion of new technology.     

Asymmetric information, strategic behavior, and discrimination in the labor market

Summary  The neoclassical model of labor market discrimination assumes the presence of either prejudiced preferences, biased assessments of worker productivity, or monopsony power. We show that when market agents control asymmetric information, strategic behavior can induce discriminatory hiring practices even when these market features are absent. Moreover, strategic interaction many distort public policies to the point of harming the segments of the work force they were designed to support. Received: January 3, 1996 revised version April 29, 1996     

Simultaneity between strategic variables: Production,innovation, and product differentiation

This paper aims to analyze the existence of simultaneous effects among the variables production, product differentiation, and innovation. Microeconomic data from a sample of 2,160 firms are used as a base. Empirical results show that a positive correlation exists from innovation to product differentiation, thus showing that it is in the process of production itself, through technical improvements, where product differentiation is determined. On the other hand, no positive effect exists from product differentiation to innovation, i.e., once technical improvements have been established, firms exchange the barriers to entry created by brand image for the real barriers established by innovation itself. Lastly, the importance of the firm size in explaining the other endogenous variables analyzed is confirmed. This paper has received financial support from the Valencian Institut of Economic Research (IVIE). The study was carried out within the framework of research program SEC94-1357 of the Comisón Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT).     

Impact management,worst scenatrio: possible technological strategic options

Analysis of the present situation and future predictions leaves no doubt of the inevitability of progressive degradation of the ecosytem. A worst scenatio is an option which has to be considered in any strategic planning. Mistaken assessment, focussing on modern technology as teh cause rather than the agent porducing the current devastation, has called for its drastic curtailment. This would not help matters—in fact, technology may yet save the situation: by building refuges, in attempting to reverse the processes which undermine it, and in helping adaptations to present conditions, not only throuht mechanical devices but also through bioengineering. concurrently the main reasons for the plight of the planet—over-population, overkill and waste—have to be tackled. This can only be accomplished by a complete change in ethical standards—the taming of the ’genetic ethics‘ of growth and dominance and the institution of a new mnorality.     

Impact management, worst scenatrio: possible technological strategic options

Analysis of the present situation and future predictions leaves no doubt of the inevitability of progressive degradation of the ecosytem. A worst scenatio is an option which has to be considered in any strategic planning. Mistaken assessment, focussing on modern technology as teh cause rather than the agent porducing the current devastation, has called for its drastic curtailment. This would not help matters—in fact, technology may yet save the situation: by building refuges, in attempting to reverse the processes which undermine it, and in helping adaptations to present conditions, not only throuht mechanical devices but also through bioengineering. concurrently the main reasons for the plight of the planet—over-population, overkill and waste—have to be tackled. This can only be accomplished by a complete change in ethical standards—the taming of the 'genetic ethics' of growth and dominance and the institution of a new mnorality.     

Technological innovation, organizational linkages and strategic degrees of freedom

This paper draws on case studies of seuen LK-based multinational companies to examine the relationship between different types of technological innovation, internal and external organizational linkages and technology strategy. A model of technological innovation is deueloped to help explore this relationship. The model consists of three dimensions—technology, component and product—linked by four modes of innovation—incremental, architectural, fusion and breakthrough. The findings support the contingency theory, where different organizational structures and processes are consistent with dgerent contingency theoy, where diffrent organizational structures and processes are consistent with development.     

The strategic Marshallian cross

We prove existence and uniqueness of non-autarkic equilibria in bilateral oligopoly assuming only that preferences are binormal and satisfy a weakened version of gross substitutes. We permit complete heterogeneity of preferences and our analysis exploits the fact that payoffs depend only on own strategy and two universal aggregates. This allows us to define strategic versions of supply and demand curves such that non-autarkic Nash equilibria are in 1–1 correspondence with intersections of these curves. The same approach can be used to establish comparative statics under the assumptions above. As examples, we focus on adding players and changing endowments. This competitive approach also allows us to conclude that much of conventional Marshallian analysis is robust to strategic manipulation.     

Anti-herding and strategic consultation

In this paper I analyze how careerist decision makers aggregate and use information provided by others. I find that decision makers who are motivated by reputation concerns tend to ‘anti-herding’, i.e., they excessively contradict public information such as the prior or others’ recommendations. I also find that some decision makers may deliberately act unilaterally and not consult advisers although advice is costless. Moreover, advisers to the decision maker may not report their information truthfully. Even if the advisers care only about the outcome, they bias their recommendation since they anticipate inefficient anti-herding behavior by the decision maker.     

The strategic Marshallian cross

We prove existence and uniqueness of non-autarkic equilibria in bilateral oligopoly assuming only that preferences are binormal and satisfy a weakened version of gross substitutes. We permit complete heterogeneity of preferences and our analysis exploits the fact that payoffs depend only on own strategy and two universal aggregates. This allows us to define strategic versions of supply and demand curves such that non-autarkic Nash equilibria are in 1–1 correspondence with intersections of these curves. The same approach can be used to establish comparative statics under the assumptions above. As examples, we focus on adding players and changing endowments. This competitive approach also allows us to conclude that much of conventional Marshallian analysis is robust to strategic manipulation.     

Information and strategic voting

We theoretically and experimentally study voter behavior in a setting characterized by plurality rule and mandatory voting. Voters choose from three options. We are interested in the occurrence of strategic voting in an environment where Condorcet cycles may occur and focus on how information about the preference distribution affects strategic behavior. We also vary the relative importance of the second preferred option. Quantal response equilibrium analysis is used to analyze the game and derive predictions. Our results indeed show that strategic voting arises. Its extent depends on (i) information availability; (ii) the relative importance of the intermediate candidate; (iii) the electorate’s relative support for one’s preferred candidate; (iv) the relative position of the plurality-supported candidate in one’s preference ordering. Our results show that information serves as a coordination device where strategic voting does not harm the plurality-preferred candidate’s chances of winning.     

Self-confidence and strategic behavior

We suggest that overconfidence (conscious or unconscious) is motivated in part by strategic considerations, and test this experimentally. We find compelling supporting evidence in the behavior of participants who send and respond to others’ statements of confidence about how well they have scored on an IQ test. In two-player tournaments where the higher score wins, a player is very likely to choose to compete when he knows that his own stated confidence is higher than the other player’s, but rarely when the reverse is true. Consistent with this behavior, stated confidence is inflated by males when deterrence is strategically optimal and is instead deflated (by males and females) when luring (encouraging entry) is strategically optimal. This behavior is consistent with the equilibrium of the corresponding signaling game. Overconfident statements are used in environments that seem familiar, and we present evidence that suggests that this can occur on an unconscious level.     

Robustness to strategic uncertainty

We introduce a criterion for robustness to strategic uncertainty in games with continuum strategy sets. We model a player's uncertainty about another player's strategy as an atomless probability distribution over that player's strategy set. We call a strategy profile robust to strategic uncertainty if it is the limit, as uncertainty vanishes, of some sequence of strategy profiles in which every player's strategy is optimal under his or her uncertainty about the others. When payoff functions are continuous we show that our criterion is a refinement of Nash equilibrium and we also give sufficient conditions for existence of a robust strategy profile. In addition, we apply the criterion to Bertrand games with convex costs, a class of games with discontinuous payoff functions and a continuum of Nash equilibria. We show that it then selects a unique Nash equilibrium, in agreement with some recent experimental findings.