We present a collection of three essays exploring topics in microeconomic theory: conflict, alliances, and the origins of society; supply chain networks and industrial organisation; and game theory on economic networks.
Chapter 1
Anthropological evidence has shown that humans in the earliest agricultural societies worked harder and had lesser health outcomes than humans in hunter-gatherer societies. We develop a model where hunting and gathering is more productive than agriculture, yet individually rational actors coordinate on a less productive agricultural equilibrium. In an agricultural society, a group of warriors with dominant fighting skills threaten hunters into subjugation and tax farmers a portion of their produce. We develop three submodels: a simple model where all agents are worse off than in a hunter-gatherer society, a model with inequality where warriors improve their payoff relative to hunting and gathering at the expense of all other agents, and a dynamic model describing the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society.
Chapter 2
Barriers to trade can create price discrepancies between markets. We apply this concept to an intermediation network, where the price at each node varies inversely with the quantity of resource supplied. We model a directed multipartite graph of intermediaries between a source and a market, where intermediaries in each partition simultaneously compete in the manner of Cournot competition, selecting the quantity of resource sold along each of their out-links. The linking structure represents each intermediary's opportunity to sell the resource. We derive an analytical solution determining the quantity decisions of each intermediary in the network, which we believe is the first such solution for a Cournot-driven supply chain. We discuss the efficiency of networks, and develop a measure that evaluates networks according to the consumer surplus received at the market.
Chapter 3
A set of agents is connected by two distinct networks, with each network describing access to a different local public good. Agents choose in which networks to invest, and neighbouring agents' investments in the same good are strategic substitutes, as are an agent's two investment choices. There are always equilibria where any investing agent bears all local investment costs and others free-ride. When investment in one good reduces marginal benefit from investment in the other, agents free-riding in one good may invest more profitably in the other, and equilibrium payoffs are more evenly distributed. This need not reduce aggregate payoff
