The War of Information

We analyze political campaigns between two parties with opposing interests. Parties pay a cost to provide information to a voter who chooses the policy. The information flow is continuous and stops when parties quit. The parties' actions are strategic substitutes: a party with a lower cost provides more but its opponent provides less information. For voters, the parties' actions are complements and raising the low-cost party's cost may be beneficial. Asymmetric information adds a signaling component in the form of a belief-threshold beyond which unfavorable information is offset by the informed party's decision to continue campaigning.

The Forgotten 150th: Why the Civil War Sesquicentennial is Far From Over

Last spring, my friends told me that it was the perfect time to get into Civil War reenacting. “The 150th is over,” they said, “No one is going to care about the Civil War anymore, so everyone will be selling all their stuff.” Somehow, this bit of insider trading information meant more to me than just bargain brogans and frock coats. [excerpt

Are We Defended? Conflicting Representations of War in Pre-War France

This article examines contradictions in the way that war was represented to the French population in the interwar period. It argues that an ‘official’ representation of war gave an impression of France as a secure nation; people were discouraged from questioning the dominant military doctrine of defensive warfare, and were denied access to information to stifle potential criticism. ‘Unofficial’ representations, on the other hand, combined to create an image of a country whose security was increasingly threatened, particularly by a powerful eastern neighbour. During the 1930s, a feeling of imminent catastrophe was in the air, not only as a result of representations of war in film, press and advertising, but also fuelled by the ‘official’ literature of civil defence. The article draws on archival material from the towns of Boulogne-Billancourt and Brest to show that conflicting representations of war led to such confusion when war broke out in 1939 that people were unprepared, psychologically and physically, despite a near obsession with war over the past twenty years. Further, the strength of the representation of war as imminent catastrophe contributed to the state of mind which caused between eight and ten million citizens to flee the invading German army in panic in the summer of 1940

The Effects of Information on Strategic Investment and Welfare

A model is considered where two firms compete in investing in a risky project. At certain points in time the firms obtain imperfect information about the profitability of the project. We impose that investing first can be beneficial because a Stackelberg advantage, and thus a higher market share, is obtained. On the other hand, investing as second implies that one can benefit from an information spillover generated by the investment of the other firm. Consequently, in equilibrium there is either a preemption situation or a war of attrition. In case no investment takes place during the war of attrition, this war of attrition can turn into a preemption situation. One counterintuitive result is that welfare can be negatively affected by signals becoming more informative or by occuring more frequently. Furthermore, simulations indicate that duopoly leads to higher welfare than monopoly when signals are less informative, wheras the opposite holds if there is more or better information.

Information display from board wargame for marketing strategy identification

Marketing warfare is an alternative solution for a company to defend itself or to win market parts. This approach presents consumer spirit as a battleground where companies make military maneuvers to confront each other. But a problem subsists, how make a link between market and battle or war? May be a solution exists: business wargames. But now, they are too complex or only role playing oriented without any solution to map battles. However, before being business wargames, wargames were developed to propose visual solutions to recreate a specific war situation. Now, wargames for civilians exist, with a particular kind: board wargames, which we found very interesting for information display. In this paper, we develop a methodology to apply a board wargame tool for a market situation. This methodology contributes to creative competitive intelligence (or creative watch) a new kind of competitive intelligence, in the sense it participates to information discovery that directly contributes to the creation and innovation process.intelligence économique, veille stratégique, veille concurrentielle, veille marché, veille créative, veille des innovations, veille des créations, visualisation d'information, innovation, jeu de guerre, wargame, war game, jeu sérieux // creative intelligence, strategic intelligence, competitive intelligence, economic intelligence, market intelligence, business intelligence, information visualization, wargaming, wargame, war game, marketing warfare, innovation, watch, serious game, serious gaming, creative competitive intelligence

The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History

This poster provides a high-level overview of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History project, giving information on its creation, the collection of letters, how it has used digital mapping, and its use in the classroom

The World War II Letters of Richard Schade

Richard Schade was a newlywed when he was drafted into the United States Army on January 29, 1943, in Camden, New Jersey. While stationed in the United States during World War II, he wrote a series of letters to his new wife, Betty. Many of these letters were love letters discussing deep love as well as the active plan to start a family. Through the letters written over the course of months he records his daily duties, concerns, dreams, and various information about the conditions in the military. His letters developed into a valuable insight into the life of a soldier stationed in America during World War II. This research paper uncovers information about Richard Schade and his military time that had been lost not only to his family but also to some military records, creating a fuller picture and providing many answers to questions left unanswered over time