Make Him an Offer He Can’t Refuse: Avoiding Conflicts through Side Payments

The equilibrium of a two-stage conflict game with side-payments predicts that with binding stage-one offers, proposers make and responders accept side-payments, generating settlements that strongly favor proposers. When side-payments are non-binding, proposers offer nothing and conflicts always arise. Laboratory experiments confirm that binding side-payments reduce conflicts. However, 30% of responders reject binding offers, and offers are more egalitarian than predicted. Surprisingly, non-binding side-payments also improve efficiency, although less than binding. With binding side-payments, 98% of efficiency gains come from avoided conflicts. However, with non-binding side-payments, only 49% of gains come from avoided conflicts and 51% from reduced conflict expenditures.contest, conflict resolution, side payments, experiments

Side Payments of Exceptions: The Implications for Equitable and Efficient Climate Control

The Kyoto Protocol prioritizes equity in international climate control by exempting developing countries from compulsory emissions reductions, though at a loss to efficiency. Using game theoretic models, this paper demonstrates that an efficient climate treaty must provide side payments to countries with lower marginal abatement costs and (or) benefits to induce their cooperation. Therefore, if an efficient treaty directs side payments to developing countries to induce their participation, the treaty may also achieve equity in climate control. Policy makers should remember the equity and efficiency implications of side payments as extensions and/or alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol are considered.

The Formation of Networks with Side Payments

We examine the formation of networks among a set of players whose payoffs depend on the structure of the network. We focus on games where players may promise or demand transfer payments when forming links. If players may only make such transfers on the links they are directly involved with, then there are many settings where inefficient networks are the only equilibrium outcomes, and we fully characterize the supportable networks. If externalities are nonpositive and a convexity condition is satisfied, then efficient networks are supportable as equilibria with such direct transfers. If players can also make positive transfers to pay for links they are not involved with, then a convexity condition alone is sufficient for an efficient network to be supportable as an equilibrium. In cases where transfers can be made contingent on the network, then any efficient network is supportable as an equilibrium. We also consider a refinement of equilibrium that allows pairs of players to coordinate their promises and demands on a link. If players can make payments to prevent the formation of a link as well as to form it, then all efficient networks are supportable via the pairwise equilibrium refinementnetwork formation, side-payments

Endogenous Games and Mechanisms: Side Payments Among Players

We characterize the outcomes of games when players may make binding offers of strategy contingent side payments before the game is played. This does not always lead to efficient outcomes, despite complete information and costless contracting. The characterizations are illustrated in a series of examples, including voluntary contribution public good games, Cournot and Bertrand oligopoly, principal-agent problems, and commons games, among others.game theory, mechanism design, contracts, side payments, endogenous games, public goods