We study the abilities of competitive markets to produce sufficient energy capacities to meet a fixed energy demand. Renewable energy producers with stochastic outputs and no variable costs compete against conventional energy producers with deterministic, pollutant outputs and increasing marginal costs. We find that either market forces are strong enough to serve the entire demand, or they are too weak such that the market fails and nothing is produced. This crucially depends on the relative cost of renewable energy investments, such that relatively cheap renewable energy causes the market to fail. Welfare analyses show that with increasing levels of conventional energy pollution the ability of the market to produce an ecient outcome further declines. As a policy implication, our findings refute the use of a strategic reserve as a blackout backstop solution. Instead, a capacity mechanism consisting of a tax-and-subsidy scheme can align the market outcome with the eficient solution for all pollution levels and relative costs of renewable energy capacities.

We study the consequences of modeling asymmetric bargaining power in two-person bargaining problems. Comparing application of an asymmetric version of a bargaining solution to an upfront modification of the disagreement point, the resulting distortion crucially depends on the bargaining solution concept. While for the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution weaker players benefit from modifying the disagreement point, the situation is reversed for the Nash bargaining solution. There, weaker players are better off in the asymmetric bargaining solution. When comparing application of the asymmetric versions of the Nash and the Kalai-Smorodinsky solutions, we demonstrate that there is an upper bound for the weight of a player, so that she is better off with the Nash bargaining solution. This threshold is ultimately determined by the relative utilitarian bargaining solution. From a mechanism design perspective, our results provide valuable information for a social planner, when implementing a bargaining solution for unequally powerful players.

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) enables researchers in international management to better understand how the impact of a single explanatory factor depends on the context of other factors. But the analytical tool box of QCA does not include a parameter for the explanatory power of a single explanatory factor or condition . In this paper, we therefore reinterpret the Banzhaf power index, originally developed in cooperative game theory, to establish as a goodness-of-fit parameter in QCA. The relative Banzhaf index we suggest measures the explanatory power of one condition averaged across all sufficient combinations of conditions. The paper argues that the index is especially informative in three situations that are all salient in international management, namely substantial limited diversity in the data, the emergence of strong INUS conditions in the analysis, and theorizing with contingency factors. The paper derives the properties of the relative Banzhaf index in the QCA context, demonstrates how the index can be computed easily from a rudimentary truth table, and explores its insights by revisiting selected papers in international management that apply fuzzy-set QCA. The discussion section offers routes for exploring further how the relative Banzhaf and other power indexes can be applied in QCA.

We study the structure of power networks in consideration of local protests against certain power lines (’not-in-my-backyard’). An application of a network formation game is used to determine whether or not such protests arise. We examine the existence of stable networks and their characteristics, when no player wants to make an alteration. Stability within this game is only reached if each player is sufficiently connected to a power source but is not linked to more players than necessary. In addition we introduce an algorithm that creates a stable network.

In this paper, we analyze the two-dimensional Nash bargaining solution (NBS) deploying a standard labor market negotiations model (see McDonald and Solow, 1981; Creedy and McDonald, 1991). We show that the two-dimensional bargaining problem can be decomposed into two one-dimensional problems such that the (Cartesian) product of the solutions of these problems replicates the solution of the two-dimensional problem, if the NBS is applied. However, this decomposition fails for any solution concept that does not satisfy the axiom of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA axiom). Our decomposition result has significant implications for actual negotiations, as it allows for the decomposition of a multi-issue bargaining problem into a set of simpler problems, in particular a set of single-issue bargaining problems. In this way, the decomposition may help facilitate negotiations in labor markets and also in other environments.

This note deals with agreeability in nontransferable utility (NTU) differential games. We introduce state feedback Pareto weights to enrich the set of efficient cooperative solutions. The framework is particularly useful if constant weights fail to support agreeability, but cooperation is desired nonetheless. The concept is applied to an adverting differential game.

We establish axioms under which a bargaining solution can be found by the maximization of the CES function and is unique up to specification of the distribution and elasticity parameters. This solution is referred to as the CES solution which includes the NASH and egalitarian solutions as special cases. Next, we consider a normalization of the CES function and establish axioms, under which a bargaining solution can be found by the maximization of the normalized CES and is unique up to the specifications of the distribution and its substitution parameters. We refer to this solution as the normalized CES solution, which includes the Nash and Kalai-Smorodinsky solutions as special cases. Our paper contributes to bargaining theory by establishing unified characterizations of existing as well as a great variety of new bargaining solutions.

In actual school choice applications the theoretical underpinnings of the Boston School Choice Mechanism (BM) (complete information and rationality of the agents) are often not given. We analyze the actual behavior of agents in such a matching mechanism, using data from the matching mechanism currently used in a clearinghouse at a faculty of Business Administration and Economics at a German university, where a variant of the BM is used, and supplement this data with data generated in a survey among students who participated in the clearinghouse. We find that under the current mechanism over 70% of students act strategically. Controlling for students' limited information, we find that they do act rationally in their decision to act strategically. While students thus seem to react to the incentives to act strategically under the BM, they do not seem to be able to use this to their own advantage. However, those students acting in line with their beliefs manage a significantly better personal outcome than those who do not. We also run simulations by using a variant of the deferred acceptance algorithm, adapted to our situation, to show that the use of a different algorithm may be to the students' advantage.

While Islamic State is the most present example, it is a fact that in many places around the globe, throughout history initially small groups have tried to challenge and destabilize or even overthrow governments by means of terrorist and guerrilla strategies. Therefore, we answer two questions. Why does a small group of insurgents believe it can overthrow the government by turning violent, even if the government is clearly superior? And how does a conflict develop into terrorism, a guerilla war, or a major conventional civil war, or is resolved peacefully? We develop a formal model for rebels and government and derive optimal choices. Further, we focus on three elements as important ingredients of a "destabilization war". All three of these - large random events, time preference (which we relate to ideology), and choice of duration of fight - are rarely considered in formal conflict theory. We can answer the above two questions using game theory analysis. First, insurgents rise up because they hope to destabilize through permanent challenging attacks. In this context, large randomness is an important ally of rebels. While each individual attack may have a low impact, at some point a large random event could lead to success. Hence, the duration of activities is a constitutive element of this kind of armed conflict. Patience (low time preference), which may reflect rebels' degree of ideological motivation, is crucial. Second, the mode of warfare or the conflict resolutions that develop are generally path-dependent and conditioned on the full set of options (including compromise). Various conditions (level of funding, ease of recruitment, access to weapons) influence different modes of warfare or a peaceful compromise in a complex way.

We analyze the stability of networks when two intermediaries strategically form costly links to customers. We interpret these links as customer relationships that enable trade to sell a product. Equilibrium prices and equilibrium quantities on the output as well as on the input market are determined endogenously for a given network of customer relationships. We investigate in how far the substitutability of the intermediaries' products and the costs of link formation influence the intermediaries' equilibrium profits and thus have an impact on the incentives to strategically form relationships to customers. For networks with three customers we characterize locally stable networks, in particular existence is guaranteed for any degree of substitutability. Moreover for the special cases of perfect complements, independent products and perfect substitutes, local stability coincides with the stronger concept of Nash stability. Additionally, for networks with n customers we analyze stability regions for selected networks and determine their limits when n goes to infinity. It turns out that the shape of the stability regions for those networks does not significantly change compared to a setting with a small number of customers.