it's time for some game theory

January 19, 2018 10:57 AM

Do you know of any game-theoretic analyses of the current US Federal budget negotiations, including a potential shutdown?
posted by the man of twists and turns to Law & Government (2 answers total)

Results from Google, not a confirmation of deep game theory analysis:

* Budget Negotiations: A Study Of Game Theory (NPR, April 6, 2011), with comments from Kenneth Shepsle, a political scientist at Harvard who studies game theory, Northwestern University Professor Daniel Diermeier, and the latter notes:

It turns out that games that are easy to analyze are those that have few players and that have a lot of players. The really difficult part are the things in between, when you have a few hundred players just like we have in the case of the U.S. Congress.

Which is probably why it's hard to find much in the way of deep analysis.

* Game theory and America’s budget battle (Anatole Kaletsky for Reuters [Blogs], October 3, 2013), which walks through some of the "logic" and reasoning behind the 2013 showdown, but at a high level as to reduce the number of players.

* A brief note on game theory in public agency management negotiations with politicians (Google books preview) from Introducing Public Administration by Jay M. Shafritz, E. W. Russell, Christopher P. Borick, Albert C. Hyde

* Further readings in game theory: How it applies to marriage, kidney donation chains and government gridlock, a TED blog post from Kate Torgovnick May (March 28, 2013), with a number of links to other resources and reading

* And probably the best article I've found - Understanding the Game Being Played in Washington, by Justin Fox for Harvard Business Review (October 04, 2013), who read through several works of game theory and cited economist H. Peyton Young’s “The Evolution of Conventions” (JSTOR) and others.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:26 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Vox: The strategic case for — and against — Democrats shutting down the government over DACA

Not explicitly game-theoretic, but has some aspects, e.g., "The basic argument is that a polarizing, high-stakes confrontation could make the pugnacious, dominance-obsessed president less likely to give in, for fear he’d be seen as a loser."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:12 PM on January 19, 2018