IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tex/wpaper/130116.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

N-Dimensional Blotto Game with Asymmetric Battlefield Values

Author

Listed:
  • Caroline D. Thomas

    (Department of Economics, The University of Texas at Austin)

Abstract

This paper introduces a new geometric method for constructing equilibrium distributions in the Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric battlefield values, generalizing the construction method of Laslier and Picard (2002). Our method does particularly well in instances of the Colonel Blotto game in which the battlefield values satisfy some clearly defined regularity conditions. The paper establishes the parallel between these conditions and the constrained integer partitioning problem in combinatorial optimisation. We illustrate in the context of the US presidential elections the properties of equilibrium distributions generated by our construction method. In a numerical example, we address the equity of campaign resource allocations.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline D. Thomas, 2009. "N-Dimensional Blotto Game with Asymmetric Battlefield Values," Department of Economics Working Papers 130116, The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:tex:wpaper:130116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.google.com/site/carotho14/research/files/20161202_Blotto.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Roberson, 2006. "The Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, September.
    2. Kvasov, Dmitriy, 2007. "Contests with limited resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 738-748, September.
    3. Randall G. Chapman & Kristian S. Palda, 1984. "Assessing the Influence of Campaign Expenditures on Voting Behavior with a Comprehensive Electoral Market Model," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 207-226.
    4. Laslier, Jean-Francois & Picard, Nathalie, 2002. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 106-130, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Subhasish M Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & David Rojo Arjona & Nathaniel T Wilcox, 2021. "Focality and Asymmetry in Multi-Battle Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1593-1619.
    2. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    3. Osorio, Antonio, 2013. "The lottery Blotto game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 164-166.
    4. Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov & Martin Sefton & Theodore Turocy, 2013. "Majoritarian Contests with Asymmetric Battlefields: An Experiment," Discussion Papers 2013-12, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    5. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2015. "The Optimal Defense of Network Connectivity," Working Papers 15-24, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    6. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2021. "Generalizations of the General Lotto and Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(3), pages 997-1032, April.
    7. Avrahami, Judith & Kareev, Yaakov & Todd, Peter M. & Silverman, Boaz, 2014. "Allocation of resources in asymmetric competitions: How do the weak maintain a chance of winning?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 161-174.
    8. repec:ehu:ikerla:11222 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov & Martin Sefton & Theodore Turocy, 2016. "Majoritarian Blotto contests with asymmetric battlefields: an experiment on apex games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 55-89, January.
    10. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2018. "The Optimal Defense Of Networks Of Targets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2195-2211, October.
    11. Scott Macdonell & Nick Mastronardi, 2015. "Waging simple wars: a complete characterization of two-battlefield Blotto equilibria," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(1), pages 183-216, January.
    12. Kostyantyn Mazur, 2017. "A Partial Solution to Continuous Blotto," Papers 1706.08479, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2017.

    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. Caroline D. Thomas, 2021. "Strategic Experimentation with Congestion," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-82, February.
    2. Caroline Thomas, 2018. "N-dimensional Blotto game with heterogeneous battlefield values," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 509-544, May.
    3. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
    4. Alan Washburn, 2013. "OR Forum---Blotto Politics," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 532-543, June.
    5. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2008. "Electoral Poaching and Party Identification," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 275-302, July.
    6. Deck, Cary & Hao, Li & Porter, David, 2015. "Do prediction markets aid defenders in a weak-link contest?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 248-258.
    7. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "The attack and defense of weakest-link networks," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 175-194, June.
    8. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2018. "The Optimal Defense Of Networks Of Targets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2195-2211, October.
    9. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2021. "Generalizations of the General Lotto and Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(3), pages 997-1032, April.
    10. Brian Roberson & Dmitriy Kvasov, 2012. "The non-constant-sum Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 397-433, October.
    11. Duffy, John & Matros, Alexander, 2017. "Stochastic asymmetric Blotto games: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 88-105.
    12. Sudipta Sarangi & Dan Kovenock & Matt Wiser, 2012. "All-Pay Hex: A Multibattle Contest With Complementarities," Departmental Working Papers 2012-06, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    13. AmirMahdi Ahmadinejad & Sina Dehghani & MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi & Brendan Lucier & Hamid Mahini & Saeed Seddighin, 2019. "From Duels to Battlefields: Computing Equilibria of Blotto and Other Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 1304-1325, November.
    14. Adamo, Tim & Matros, Alexander, 2009. "A Blotto game with Incomplete Information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 100-102, October.
    15. Roberson, Brian, 2006. "Pork-barrel politics, discriminatory policies and fiscal federalism [Kuhhandel in der Lokalpolitik und der fiskalische Föderalismus]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2006-15, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    16. Dan Kovenock & Sudipta Sarangi & Matt Wiser, 2015. "All-pay 2 $$\times $$ × 2 Hex: a multibattle contest with complementarities," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(3), pages 571-597, August.
    17. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2015. "The Optimal Defense of Network Connectivity," Working Papers 15-24, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    18. Anbarci, Nejat & Cingiz, Kutay & Ismail, Mehmet S., 2023. "Proportional resource allocation in dynamic n-player Blotto games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 94-100.
    19. Alexander Matros, 2007. "A Blotto Game with Incomplete Information," Working Paper 332, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jul 2009.
    20. Deck, Cary & Sarangi, Sudipta & Wiser, Matt, 2017. "An experimental investigation of simultaneous multi-battle contests with strategic complementarities," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 117-134.

    More about this item

    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:tex:wpaper:130116. 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: Caroline Thomas (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deutxus.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.