Team agency and conditional games

We consider motivations for acknowledging that people participate in multiple levels of economic agency. One of these levels is characterized in terms of subjective utility to the individual; another, frequently observed, level is characterized in terms of utility to social groups with which people (temporarily) identify. Following Bacharach (2006), we describe such groups as ‘teams’. We review Bacharach’s theory of such identification in his account of ‘team reasoning’. While this conceptualization is useful, it applies only to processes supported by deliberation. As this is only one of a range of causal mechanisms underlying behaviour by humans and other strategic agents, a more general account is desirable. We then argue that Stirling’s (2012) account of ‘conditional games’ achieves the desired generalization

A Testbed Architecture for MAGICC Applications

A testbed is developed for testing Multi-AGent Intelligent Coordination and Control (MAGICC). The robots act as agents which make decisions and act upon them via classical control theory. The testbed consists of sensors( camera and encoders), embedded controllers, modems and a computer network which are integrated into a hierarchical control which has decision makers, controllers, estimators and predictors. The testbed has successfully been applied to initializing the robots into geometric formation. Simulation and Hardware results are presented

A Sufficient Condition for Weakly Acyclic games with Applications

The class of weakly acyclic games captures many practical application domains, and is particularly relevant for multi-agent distributed control problems. However, reliably checking weak acyclicity is extremely computationally intractable (PSPACE-complete) in the worst case. The present paper identifies sufficient conditions for weak acyclicity by means of the transitive closure of individual conditional preference, which can be constructed in terms of better-reply improvement paths. This pure-ordinal approach leads to a novel connection between weak acyclic games and better-reply secure games. Specifically, a better-reply secure game is weakly acyclic if the better reply dynamics does not possess a dense orbit (in addition to the quasi-concavity of individual preferences as well as the usual convexity and compactness assumptions on strategy sets). These results give a partial answer to an open problem of finding applicable and tractable conditions for weak acyclicity, posed by Fabrikant, Jaggard, and Schapira in 2013

Current, January 22, 1976

https://irl.umsl.edu/current1970s/1168/thumbnail.jp

VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods: Book of Abstracts

The VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods (WCDANM) is going to be held on June 27-29, 2019, in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilhã, Portugal and it is a unique opportunity to disseminate scientific research related to the areas of Mathematics in general, with particular relevance to the areas of Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods in theoretical and/or practical field, using new techniques, giving especial emphasis to applications in Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology, Engineering, Industry, Environmental Sciences, Finance, Insurance, Management and Administration. The meeting will provide a forum for discussion and debate of ideas with interest to the scientific community in general. With this meeting new scientific collaborations among colleagues, namely new collaborations in Masters and PhD projects are expected. The event is open to the entire scientific community (with or without communication/poster)

Stability of democracies:A complex systems perspective

The idea that democracy is under threat, after being largely dormant for at least 40 years, is looming increasingly large in public discourse. Complex systems theory offers a range of powerful new tools to analyse the stability of social institutions in general, and democracy in particular. What makes a democracy stable? And which processes potentially lead to instability of a democratic system? This paper offers a complex systems perspective on this question, informed by areas of the mathematical, natural, and social sciences. We explain the meaning of the term ‘stability’ in different disciplines and discuss how laws, rules, and regulations, but also norms, conventions, and expectations are decisive for the stability of a social institution such as democracy

ISIPTA'07: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications

B

Two petro-states diverge: explaining the institutional evolution of Nigeria and Angola

It is well-established that oil wealth in weakly institutionalised states tends to undermine development instead of catalysing it. Cross-country regressions, however, struggle to explain why comparably oil-wealthy countries such as Nigeria and Angola experience different political and economic outcomes over time. This thesis explains these differing outcomes through a theoretical lens derived from the New Institutional Economics and Political Settlements literature. Methodologically, it employs analytic narrative - the application of a game theoretic model to a historical puzzle to produce a thin explanation - and treats economic transactions as the key unit of analysis for understanding why particular outcomes obtain and not others. As a comparable site of analysis, I select the oil-for-infrastructure deals that were negotiated in Angola and Nigeria with Asian National Oil Companies between 2004 and 2007. Contrary to expectation, the deals were struck in Angola but failed in Nigeria. I hypothesise that the differential outcome reflects the varying quality of the institutional arrangements in each country for engaging foreign investors. This differential institutional quality resulted in differing commitment credibility over time, which partly accounts for deal failure in Nigeria. Divergent political economy trajectories and political settlements account for these differences. I use a game theory model that explains heterogeneity within authoritarian regimes to test these hypotheses. Application of the model to Angola and Nigeria respectively shows that Angolan dictator, José Eduardo dos Santos, was able to consolidate power within six years of becoming the head of state by successfully eliminating potential threats to his dictatorial ambitions. Under this closed, stable regime, foreign investors perceived greater levels of commitment credibility and struck deals. Nigeria’s uneven institutional evolution towards greater openness was punctuated by multiple successful coups and occasional civilian rule between long periods of military autocracy. The resultant instability undermined the perception of credibility, explaining why the deals failed. The thesis closes with a description of how Nigeria and Angola’s political economies have evolved since the oil-price crash of 2014, including how dos Santos unexpectedly lost power, and poses questions for future research