Diversity and Popularity in Organizations and Communities

This paper examines social groupings whose structure depends only on the distribution of ability to attract attention. When people‘s attention is a scarce resource, those individuals who are rated highest by a large number of other individuals will have to ration their attention, resulting in constraints on the social structure of the group. The incidence of popular individuals by that definition reflects the extent to which individuals agree on who their highest-rated colleague is. We propose three basic distributions or ways to generate the matrix of perceived ability so as to yield popularity profiles that can be parametrically adjusted to match observations. We demonstrate that each of these assumption sets leads to a slightly different correlation between the value of the assumption‘s parameter and the set of observable popularity patterns. Since popularity, in real life, often determines such things as power, centrality, over-utilization and perhaps reduced accessibility, having more realistic ways of representing it is important for modeling and understanding virtual organizations and communities.     

Probabilistic Choice in Games: Properties of Rosenthal’s t-Solutions

The t-solutions introduced in R. W. Rosenthal (1989, Int J Game Theory 18:273–292) are quantal response equilibria based on the linear probability model. Choice probabilities in t-solutions are related to the determination of leveling taxes in taxation problems. The set of t-solutions coincides with the set of Nash equilibria of a game with quadratic control costs. Evaluating the set of t-solutions for increasing values of t yields that players become increasingly capable of iteratively eliminating never-best replies and eventually only play rationalizable actions with positive probability. These features are not shared by logit quantal response equilibria. Moreover, there exists a path of t-solutions linking uniform randomization to Nash equilibrium     

The principal-agent problem with adaptive players

In this study we show predictions made by the standard principal-agent theory may not hold when knowlege assumptions are relaxed. Conventional principal-agent models assume players are completely rational: they know their own and other player's utilities and probabilities of all states of nature. In reality, players must make decisions without such knowledge.We define a simple version of the principal-agent game and examine it using object-oriented computer simulation. Player learning is modeled with a statistical learning model. Our results show that even this simple game combined with standard learning assumptions results in complex behavior. Expectations of both the principal and the agents are crucial in determining the system outcomes. Expectations and lack of prior knowledge make it possible for the principal to converge on suboptimal behavior or not converge on a consistent behavior at all. The same attributes in the agents make it possible for the principal to drive expectations down and thus get higher effort for lower reward.This study contributes a more robust understanding of the principal-agent model and its application to incentive design.     

A robust approach for modeling limited observability in bilevel optimization

Many applications of bilevel optimization contain a leader facing a follower whose reaction deviates from the one expected by the leader due to some kind of bounded rationality. We consider bilinear bilevel problems with follower's response uncertainty due to limited observability regarding the leader's decision and exploit robust optimization to model the decision making of the follower. We show that the robust counterpart of the lower level allows to tackle the problem via the lower level's KKT conditions.     

基于演化博弈的大运河文化带城市间合作发展策略研究

目前我国正向纵深推进大运河文化带建设,合作发展是推进其建设的重要手段。文章引入经济环境、城市间资源互补性、收益分配比例、机会主义收益、惩罚成本等影响因子,运用演化博弈研究大运河文化带沿线城市间合作的形成机制。结果表明良好的宏观经济环境或城市间资源互补性强时,带来高合作超额收益,从而提高城市间向合作演化的可能性;机会收益与惩罚成本之间的差额越小,越能提高合作可能性;相反,合作成本限制了双方的合作;此外,超额收益在城市间的配比影响合作,且影响方向取决于双方投入成本与收益分配比例。因此,当前亟需政府采取各种政策鼓励城市间,特别是资源互补性强的城市间利用良好的经济建设环境加强合作,同时提高监查力度。合作城市在合作中要重视诸如利益分配、违约惩罚机制等管理机制的设计。     

基于Agent仿真的个体有限理性与众包绩效的关系研究

如何筛选有限理性参与者是企业实施众包的关键问题。通过引入个体有限理性,扩展了经典的NK模型,构建了模拟竞赛式众包问题解决过程的多主体仿真模型,研究了个体有限理性水平、个体有限理性系统化程度以及个体有限理性水平标准差对众包绩效的影响。仿真结果显示,个体有限理性水平对提高众包绩效有显著的正向影响,尤其是在任务复杂性较高的情况下;个体有限理性系统化程度和个体有限理性水平标准差对众包绩效也有正向影响,但依赖于个体有限理性水平。当企业有一个复杂性较高的任务时,如果追求所有方案的整体改善,企业需要招募有限理性水平较高的个体,并组成有限理性系统化程度较高且有限理性水平标准差较大的群体;如果追求少数优质方案,企业需要招募有限理性水平较高的个体,并组成有限理性系统化程度较低且有限理性水平标准差较大的群体。     

考虑消费者有限理性退货决策的两阶段C2B电子商务供应链回购策略优化研究

文章研究两阶段C2B电子商务交易,重点研究有限理性的消费者的退货行为给供应链成员带来的影响,并进一步研究前一阶段中的退货行为对后阶段的销售影响,结果表明两阶段的最优退货抵偿不同,基于此对两阶段销售进行了协调研究,研究表明,制造商可以调节退货后的回购价格使两阶段销售得以协调。最后,运用数值算例验证了相关结论。     

To reveal or not to reveal? Strategic disclosure of private information in negotiation

Within the bargaining literature, it is widely held that negotiators should never reveal information that will lead to disclosure of their reservation prices. We analyze a simple bargaining and search model in which the informed buyer can choose to reveal his cost of searching for an outside price (which determines his reservation price) to the uninformed seller. We demonstrate that buyers can be made better off by revealing their search cost. More interestingly, we also find that, depending on the assumed distribution of search costs, sometimes buyers with relatively low search costs should reveal their private information whereas in other cases buyers with relatively high search costs should do so. We then test our model experimentally and find that subjects’ behavior is not entirely consistent with theoretical predictions. In general, bargainers’ behavior is better explained by a bounded rationality model similar to “fictitious play”.     

An information theoretic model of bounded rationality

Bounded rationality forces an entity to divide its responses between those it does immediately (called adaptedness) and those it does with delay (called adaptability). Information theory is used to show how coding is related to the problem of choosing between adaptedness and adaptability.