Roger Myerson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3770912 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Roger Myerson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Roger |
| FAMILY NAME | Myerson |
| SIGNATURE | MYERSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0254-7184 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 334 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Focal Coordination and Language in Human Evolution
We study game-theoretic models of human evolution to analyze fundamentals of human nature. Rival-claimants games represent common situations in which animals can avoid conflict over valuable resources by mutually recognizing asymmetric claiming rights. Unlike social-dilemma games, rival-claimants games have multiple equilibria which create a rational role for communication, and so they may be good models for the role of language in human evolutio…
Comments on Decentralization in Cameroon
Decentralization can be a driving force for development, democracy, and better government in Cameroon; but the recent decentralization reform seems unlikely to achieve its promise without some further reforms. It is suggested that the system for popular election of municipal councils should be changed to an open-list proportional representation system. Where higher officials of municipal and regional governments are indirectly elected by municipa…
Local Politics and Democratic State-Building
State-building goes wrong when local politics is ignored. State-building begins not from anarchy, but from decentralized social order. In democratic state-building, transfers of power to a new national government require popular consent. A democratic state-building mission needs a stabilization-assistance team that can engage with national and local leaders as they negotiate a balanced distribution of power. When the goal is to promote political …
Political Economics in the Journal of Political Economy: Six Landmark Papers
Fundamentals of Social Choice Theory
This paper offers a short introduction to some of the fundamental results of social choice theory. Topics include Nash implementability, monotonic social choice correspondences, the Muller-Satterthwaite impossibility theorem, anonymous and neutral social choice correspondences, sophisticated solutions of binary agendas, the top cycle of a tournament, the bipartisan set for two-party competition, and median voter theorems. The paper begins with a …
Constitutional Structures for a Strong Democracy: Considerations on the Government of Pakistan
A Model of Moral-Hazard Credit Cycles
This paper considers a simple model of credit cycles driven by moral hazard in financial intermediation. Financial agents or bankers must earn moral-hazard rents, but the cost of these rents can be efficiently spread over an agent's entire career by promising large late-career rewards if the agent has a consistently successful record. Dynamic interactions among different generations of financial agents can create credit cycles with repeated booms…
A Field Manual for the Cradle of Civilization: Theory of Leadership and Lessons of Iraq
The U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Bremer's My Year in Iraq, and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus all consider problems of establishing a state. Bremer sees constitutions as fundamental, and the Field Manual emphasizes local security operations and effective governance to establish legitimacy. But Xenophon shows how states are founded by leaders with reputations for reliably rewarding supporters. Agency incentive problems in government …
The Autocrat's Credibility Problem and Foundations of the Constitutional State
A political leader's temptation to deny costly debts to past supporters is a central moral-hazard problem in politics. This paper develops a game-theoretic model to probe the consequences of this moral-hazard problem for leaders who compete to establish political regimes. In contests for power, absolute leaders who are not subject to third-party judgments can credibly recruit only limited support. A leader can do better by organizing supporters i…
Game-theoretic Consistency and International Relations
De Figueiredo et al. (this issue) have argued that, to model the American Revolution, game-theoretic consistency assumptions need to be relaxed. In response, we review the methodological rationale for such consistency assumptions, and we find a possible exception in international relations. Any inconsistent theory of games would be invalidated by rational players who are intelligent enough to understand it. Furthermore, within any society, cultur…
Economic Effects of Constitutions
Political Economics and the Weimar Disaster
The treaty of Versailles and the Weimar constitution were written in 1919 with expert advice from John Maynard Keynes and Max Weber respectively. This paper considers how advances in political and economic theory since then could help to better understand the problems of Weimar and Versailles. The Weimar constitution's combination of a strong presidency with a proportional-representation legislature may be responsible for the breakdown of German …
Bicameralism and Its Consequences for the Internal Organization of Legislatures
Theories of organization of legislatures have mainly focused on the U.S. Congress, explaining why committee systems emerge there, but not explaining variance in organization across legislatures of different countries. To analyze the effects of different constitutional features on the internal organization of legislatures, we adopt a vote-buying model and consider the incentives to delegate decision rights in a game among legislative chambers. We …
Analysis of Democratic Institutions: Structure, Conduct and Performance
This paper develops an economic perspective on political theory as a guide to some problems and directions of current research. The electoral system and the allocation of powers to elected offices together define the game that politicians play. So democratic structures should be compared and evaluated by analyzing game models to see how equilibrium behavior of political agents may depend on the structure of the political system. The goal of such …
Effectiveness of Electoral Systems for Reducing Government Corruption: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
An experiment on coordination in multi-candidate elections: The importance of polls and election histories
Game Theory
Journal Article Game Theory Get access Game Theory. By Drew Fudenberg and Jean Tirole. (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xxiii + 579. £21.50 hardback. ISBN 0 262 06141 4.)Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict. By B. Myerson Roger. (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 568. £29.95 hardback. ISBN 0 674 34115 5.) Jurgen Eichberger Jurgen Eichberger University of Melbourne Search for other works by this…
A Theory of Voting Equilibria
A voting equilibrium arises when the voters in an electorate, acting in accordance with both their preferences for the candidates and their perceptions of the relative chances of various pairs of candidates being in contention for victory, generate an election result that justifies their perceptions. Voting equilibria always exist, and the set of equilibria can vary substantially with the choice of voting system. We compare equilibria under the p…
Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems
A simple model is used to compare, under different electoral systems, the incentives for candidates to create inequalities among otherwise homogeneous voters, by making campaign promises that favor small groups, rather than appealing equally to all voters. In this game model, each candidate generates offers for voters independently out of a distribution that is chosen by the candidate, subject only to the constraints that offers must be nonnegati…
On the Value of Game Theory in Social Science
This article discusses the value and limitations of game theory's use in the social sciences. The role of game theory is discussed and contrasted with exaggerated expectations of the subject. The importance of a modeling dialogue between theorists and empiricists is reviewed. The basic limitations of game theory are discussed, including the rationality and intelligence assumptions and the problem of multiple equilibria. The appropriate interpreta…
Optimal coordination mechanisms in generalized principal–agent problems
Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Costs
We consider the problem of how to regulate a monopolistic firm whose costs are unknown to the regulator. The regulator's objective is to maximize a linear social welfare of the consumers' surplus and the firm's profit. In the optimal regulatory policy, prices and subsidies are designed as functions of the firm's cost report so that expected social welfare is maximized, subject to the constraints that the firm has nonnegative profit and has no inc…
Optimal Auction Design
This paper considers the problem faced by a seller who has a single object to sell to one of several possible buyers, when the seller has imperfect information about how much the buyers might be willing to pay for the object. The seller's problem is to design an auction game which has a Nash equilibrium giving him the highest possible expected utility. Optimal auctions are derived in this paper for a wide class of auction design problems.
Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem
Collective choice problems are studied from the Bayesian viewpoint. It is shown that the set of expected utility allocations which are feasible with incentive-compatible mechanisms is compact and convex, and includes the equilibrium allocations for all other mechanisms. The generalized Nash solution proposed by Harsanyi and Selten is then applied to this set to define a bargaining solution for Bayesian collective choice problems.
Graphs and Cooperation in Games
Graph-theoretic ideas are used to analyze cooperation structures in games. Allocation rules, selecting a payoff for every possible cooperation structure, are studied for games in characteristic function form. Fair allocation rules are defined, and these are proven to be unique, closely related to the Shapley value, and stable for a wide class of games.
Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems
A simple model is used to compare, under different electoral systems, the incentives for candidates to create inequalities among otherwise homogeneous voters, by making campaign promises that favor small groups, rather than appealing equally to all voters. In this game model, each candidate generates offers for voters independently out of a distribution that is chosen by the candidate, subject only to the constraints that offers must be nonnegati…
The Autocrat's Credibility Problem and Foundations of the Constitutional State
A political leader's temptation to deny costly debts to past supporters is a central moral-hazard problem in politics. This paper develops a game-theoretic model to probe the consequences of this moral-hazard problem for leaders who compete to establish political regimes. In contests for power, absolute leaders who are not subject to third-party judgments can credibly recruit only limited support. A leader can do better by organizing supporters i…
A Theory of Voting Equilibria
A voting equilibrium arises when the voters in an electorate, acting in accordance with both their preferences for the candidates and their perceptions of the relative chances of various pairs of candidates being in contention for victory, generate an election result that justifies their perceptions. Voting equilibria always exist, and the set of equilibria can vary substantially with the choice of voting system. We compare equilibria under the p…
On the Value of Game Theory in Social Science
This article discusses the value and limitations of game theory's use in the social sciences. The role of game theory is discussed and contrasted with exaggerated expectations of the subject. The importance of a modeling dialogue between theorists and empiricists is reviewed. The basic limitations of game theory are discussed, including the rationality and intelligence assumptions and the problem of multiple equilibria. The appropriate interpreta…
Analysis of Democratic Institutions: Structure, Conduct and Performance
This paper develops an economic perspective on political theory as a guide to some problems and directions of current research. The electoral system and the allocation of powers to elected offices together define the game that politicians play. So democratic structures should be compared and evaluated by analyzing game models to see how equilibrium behavior of political agents may depend on the structure of the political system. The goal of such …
Constitutional Structures for a Strong Democracy: Considerations on the Government of Pakistan
Fundamentals of Social Choice Theory
This paper offers a short introduction to some of the fundamental results of social choice theory. Topics include Nash implementability, monotonic social choice correspondences, the Muller-Satterthwaite impossibility theorem, anonymous and neutral social choice correspondences, sophisticated solutions of binary agendas, the top cycle of a tournament, the bipartisan set for two-party competition, and median voter theorems. The paper begins with a …
Game-theoretic Consistency and International Relations
De Figueiredo et al. (this issue) have argued that, to model the American Revolution, game-theoretic consistency assumptions need to be relaxed. In response, we review the methodological rationale for such consistency assumptions, and we find a possible exception in international relations. Any inconsistent theory of games would be invalidated by rational players who are intelligent enough to understand it. Furthermore, within any society, cultur…
Local Politics and Democratic State-Building
State-building goes wrong when local politics is ignored. State-building begins not from anarchy, but from decentralized social order. In democratic state-building, transfers of power to a new national government require popular consent. A democratic state-building mission needs a stabilization-assistance team that can engage with national and local leaders as they negotiate a balanced distribution of power. When the goal is to promote political …
A Field Manual for the Cradle of Civilization: Theory of Leadership and Lessons of Iraq
The U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Bremer's My Year in Iraq, and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus all consider problems of establishing a state. Bremer sees constitutions as fundamental, and the Field Manual emphasizes local security operations and effective governance to establish legitimacy. But Xenophon shows how states are founded by leaders with reputations for reliably rewarding supporters. Agency incentive problems in government …
A Model of Moral-Hazard Credit Cycles
This paper considers a simple model of credit cycles driven by moral hazard in financial intermediation. Financial agents or bankers must earn moral-hazard rents, but the cost of these rents can be efficiently spread over an agent's entire career by promising large late-career rewards if the agent has a consistently successful record. Dynamic interactions among different generations of financial agents can create credit cycles with repeated booms…
Political Economics in the Journal of Political Economy: Six Landmark Papers
Graphs and Cooperation in Games
Graph-theoretic ideas are used to analyze cooperation structures in games. Allocation rules, selecting a payoff for every possible cooperation structure, are studied for games in characteristic function form. Fair allocation rules are defined, and these are proven to be unique, closely related to the Shapley value, and stable for a wide class of games.
Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem
Collective choice problems are studied from the Bayesian viewpoint. It is shown that the set of expected utility allocations which are feasible with incentive-compatible mechanisms is compact and convex, and includes the equilibrium allocations for all other mechanisms. The generalized Nash solution proposed by Harsanyi and Selten is then applied to this set to define a bargaining solution for Bayesian collective choice problems.
Optimal Auction Design
This paper considers the problem faced by a seller who has a single object to sell to one of several possible buyers, when the seller has imperfect information about how much the buyers might be willing to pay for the object. The seller's problem is to design an auction game which has a Nash equilibrium giving him the highest possible expected utility. Optimal auctions are derived in this paper for a wide class of auction design problems.
Optimal coordination mechanisms in generalized principal–agent problems
Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Costs
We consider the problem of how to regulate a monopolistic firm whose costs are unknown to the regulator. The regulator's objective is to maximize a linear social welfare of the consumers' surplus and the firm's profit. In the optimal regulatory policy, prices and subsidies are designed as functions of the firm's cost report so that expected social welfare is maximized, subject to the constraints that the firm has nonnegative profit and has no inc…
On the Value of Game Theory in Social Science
This article discusses the value and limitations of game theory's use in the social sciences. The role of game theory is discussed and contrasted with exaggerated expectations of the subject. The importance of a modeling dialogue between theorists and empiricists is reviewed. The basic limitations of game theory are discussed, including the rationality and intelligence assumptions and the problem of multiple equilibria. The appropriate interpreta…
Effectiveness of Electoral Systems for Reducing Government Corruption: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
An experiment on coordination in multi-candidate elections: The importance of polls and election histories
Game Theory
Journal Article Game Theory Get access Game Theory. By Drew Fudenberg and Jean Tirole. (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xxiii + 579. £21.50 hardback. ISBN 0 262 06141 4.)Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict. By B. Myerson Roger. (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 568. £29.95 hardback. ISBN 0 674 34115 5.) Jurgen Eichberger Jurgen Eichberger University of Melbourne Search for other works by this…
A Theory of Voting Equilibria
A voting equilibrium arises when the voters in an electorate, acting in accordance with both their preferences for the candidates and their perceptions of the relative chances of various pairs of candidates being in contention for victory, generate an election result that justifies their perceptions. Voting equilibria always exist, and the set of equilibria can vary substantially with the choice of voting system. We compare equilibria under the p…
Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems
A simple model is used to compare, under different electoral systems, the incentives for candidates to create inequalities among otherwise homogeneous voters, by making campaign promises that favor small groups, rather than appealing equally to all voters. In this game model, each candidate generates offers for voters independently out of a distribution that is chosen by the candidate, subject only to the constraints that offers must be nonnegati…
Analysis of Democratic Institutions: Structure, Conduct and Performance
This paper develops an economic perspective on political theory as a guide to some problems and directions of current research. The electoral system and the allocation of powers to elected offices together define the game that politicians play. So democratic structures should be compared and evaluated by analyzing game models to see how equilibrium behavior of political agents may depend on the structure of the political system. The goal of such …
Bicameralism and Its Consequences for the Internal Organization of Legislatures
Theories of organization of legislatures have mainly focused on the U.S. Congress, explaining why committee systems emerge there, but not explaining variance in organization across legislatures of different countries. To analyze the effects of different constitutional features on the internal organization of legislatures, we adopt a vote-buying model and consider the incentives to delegate decision rights in a game among legislative chambers. We …
Political Economics and the Weimar Disaster
The treaty of Versailles and the Weimar constitution were written in 1919 with expert advice from John Maynard Keynes and Max Weber respectively. This paper considers how advances in political and economic theory since then could help to better understand the problems of Weimar and Versailles. The Weimar constitution's combination of a strong presidency with a proportional-representation legislature may be responsible for the breakdown of German …
Economic Effects of Constitutions
Game-theoretic Consistency and International Relations
De Figueiredo et al. (this issue) have argued that, to model the American Revolution, game-theoretic consistency assumptions need to be relaxed. In response, we review the methodological rationale for such consistency assumptions, and we find a possible exception in international relations. Any inconsistent theory of games would be invalidated by rational players who are intelligent enough to understand it. Furthermore, within any society, cultur…
The Autocrat's Credibility Problem and Foundations of the Constitutional State
A political leader's temptation to deny costly debts to past supporters is a central moral-hazard problem in politics. This paper develops a game-theoretic model to probe the consequences of this moral-hazard problem for leaders who compete to establish political regimes. In contests for power, absolute leaders who are not subject to third-party judgments can credibly recruit only limited support. A leader can do better by organizing supporters i…
A Field Manual for the Cradle of Civilization: Theory of Leadership and Lessons of Iraq
The U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Bremer's My Year in Iraq, and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus all consider problems of establishing a state. Bremer sees constitutions as fundamental, and the Field Manual emphasizes local security operations and effective governance to establish legitimacy. But Xenophon shows how states are founded by leaders with reputations for reliably rewarding supporters. Agency incentive problems in government …
A Model of Moral-Hazard Credit Cycles
This paper considers a simple model of credit cycles driven by moral hazard in financial intermediation. Financial agents or bankers must earn moral-hazard rents, but the cost of these rents can be efficiently spread over an agent's entire career by promising large late-career rewards if the agent has a consistently successful record. Dynamic interactions among different generations of financial agents can create credit cycles with repeated booms…
Fundamentals of Social Choice Theory
This paper offers a short introduction to some of the fundamental results of social choice theory. Topics include Nash implementability, monotonic social choice correspondences, the Muller-Satterthwaite impossibility theorem, anonymous and neutral social choice correspondences, sophisticated solutions of binary agendas, the top cycle of a tournament, the bipartisan set for two-party competition, and median voter theorems. The paper begins with a …
Constitutional Structures for a Strong Democracy: Considerations on the Government of Pakistan
Political Economics in the Journal of Political Economy: Six Landmark Papers
Local Politics and Democratic State-Building
State-building goes wrong when local politics is ignored. State-building begins not from anarchy, but from decentralized social order. In democratic state-building, transfers of power to a new national government require popular consent. A democratic state-building mission needs a stabilization-assistance team that can engage with national and local leaders as they negotiate a balanced distribution of power. When the goal is to promote political …
Comments on Decentralization in Cameroon
Decentralization can be a driving force for development, democracy, and better government in Cameroon; but the recent decentralization reform seems unlikely to achieve its promise without some further reforms. It is suggested that the system for popular election of municipal councils should be changed to an open-list proportional representation system. Where higher officials of municipal and regional governments are indirectly elected by municipa…
Focal Coordination and Language in Human Evolution
We study game-theoretic models of human evolution to analyze fundamentals of human nature. Rival-claimants games represent common situations in which animals can avoid conflict over valuable resources by mutually recognizing asymmetric claiming rights. Unlike social-dilemma games, rival-claimants games have multiple equilibria which create a rational role for communication, and so they may be good models for the role of language in human evolutio…
Economics (19 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Game Theory and Voting Systems (11 works) · Mathematical economics (11 works) · Microeconomics (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Game Theory and Applications (8 works) · Law (8 works)