糖心TV

Peter Sozou (London School of Economics)

When common interest and competition collide

Where individuals have a common interest, they may be expected to help each other. In biology, relatives have a common (genetic) interest in each other's reproductive success. In economics, a common interest occurs where payoffs are structured in such a way that.success of one individual (or agent) leads to a positive payoff for another. Conversely, where there is a contest for a limited resource, an individual may benefit from harming its competitors. In this talk, I will consider situations in biology and economics in which individuals with a common interest are in a competitive contest. It is shown that this can lead to outcomes where they tend to help each other, outcomes where they tend to harm each other, and to asymmetric outcomes in which A helps B while at the same time B harms A.