IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kuiedp/1511.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Jeremy Bentham would defend against coordinated attacks

Author

Listed:
  • Ole Jann

    (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

  • Christoph Schottmüller

    (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

How can a single player defend against the threat of a coordinated attack by a group? For example, how can a central bank defend a currency peg against speculators, a government against a revolution or a prison warden against a breakout? Bentham (1787) proposed an innovative prison concept based on information asymmetries - "the panopticon" - as an answer to this question. We consider di erent information structures in a stylized model of a prison, in which a warden chooses a costly guard level with the goal of avoiding breakouts. Successful breakouts require coordination among prisoners. We show that the information structure corresponding to the panopticon often performs best, especially if there are many prisoners.

Suggested Citation

  • Ole Jann & Christoph Schottmüller, 2015. "How Jeremy Bentham would defend against coordinated attacks," Discussion Papers 15-11, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/dp_2015/1511.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    2. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    3. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1986. "Rational and Self-fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 72-81, March.
    4. Paolo Vitale, 2007. "An assessment of some open issues in the analysis of foreign exchange intervention," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 155-170.
    5. Itay Goldstein & Ady Pauzner, 2005. "Demand–Deposit Contracts and the Probability of Bank Runs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1293-1327, June.
    6. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1989. "The Electronic Mail Game: Strategic Behavior under "Almost Common Knowledge."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 385-391, June.
    7. Chris Edmond, 2013. "Information Manipulation, Coordination, and Regime Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1422-1458.
    8. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padró I Miquel, 2010. "Conflict and Deterrence Under Strategic Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1821-1858.
    9. Flood, Robert P. & Garber, Peter M., 1984. "Collapsing exchange-rate regimes : Some linear examples," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 1-13, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jann, Ole & Schottmüller, Christoph, 2021. "Regime change games with an active defender," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 96-113.
    2. Ahnert, Toni & Bertsch, Christoph, 2013. "A wake-up call: information contagion and strategic uncertainty," Working Paper Series 282, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden), revised 01 Mar 2014.
    3. Toni Ahnert & Christoph Bertsch, 2022. "A Wake-Up Call Theory of Contagion [Asymmetric business cycles: theory and time-series evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 829-854.
    4. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    5. Basu, Pathikrit & Chatterjee, Kalyan & Hoshino, Tetsuya & Tamuz, Omer, 2020. "Repeated coordination with private learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    6. Assaf Razin & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "Review Of Theories of Financial Crises," 2012 Meeting Papers 214, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Sbracia, Massimo & Zaghini, Andrea, 2001. "Expectations and information in second generation currency crises models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 203-222, April.
    8. Goldstein, Itay & Razin, Assaf, 2015. "Three Branches of Theories of Financial Crises," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 10(2), pages 113-180, 30.
    9. Morris, S. & Shin, H.S., 1998. "A Theory of the Onset of Currency Attacks," Economics Papers 149, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    10. Edmond, Chris, 2018. "Non-Laplacian beliefs in a global game with noisy signaling," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 297-312.
    11. Toni Ahnert & Ali Kakhbod, 2017. "Information Choice and Amplification of Financial Crises," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(6), pages 2130-2178.
    12. Giancarlo Marini & Giovanni Piersanti, 2012. "Models of Speculative Attacks and Crashes in International Capital Markets," CEIS Research Paper 245, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 Jul 2012.
    13. Helland, Leif & Iachan, Felipe S. & Juelsrud, Ragnar E. & Nenov, Plamen T., 2021. "Information quality and regime change: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 538-554.
    14. Oyama, Daisuke & Tercieux, Olivier, 2009. "Iterated potential and robustness of equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1726-1769, July.
    15. Yi, Ming, 2017. "Speculator-triggered crisis and interventions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 135-146.
    16. Shadmehr, Mehdi & Bernhardt, Dan, 2011. "Collective Action with Uncertain Payoffs: Coordination, Public Signals, and Punishment Dilemmas," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 829-851, November.
    17. Schneorson, Oren, 2022. "Interbank credit exposures and financial stability," ESRB Working Paper Series 136, European Systemic Risk Board.
    18. Pathikrit Basu & Kalyan Chatterjee & Tetsuya Hoshino & Omer Tamuz, 2018. "Repeated Coordination with Private Learning," Papers 1809.00051, arXiv.org.
    19. Kováč, Eugen & Steiner, Jakub, 2013. "Reversibility in dynamic coordination problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 298-320.
    20. Pavan, Alessandro & Vives, Xavier, 2015. "Information, Coordination, and Market Frictions: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 407-426.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    panopticon; coordination games; global games; transparency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/okokudk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.