Topic: Interconnected Conflict

Lecturer: Professor Junjie Zhou, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University

Time: 16:20-17:50 p.m. October 19th, 2023

Venue: B321 Zhixin Building, Central Campus

Abstract: This paper presents a model of conflict in which players compete in multiple interconnected battlefields. We investigate the impact of network topology on players' effort allocation and the resulting aggregate efforts in equilibrium. Surprisingly, we find that network topology does not significantly affect aggregate efforts, despite shaping players' effort allocation across battlefields. We also show that players' winning probabilities and equilibrium payoffs remain constant as network topology varies, even when players may exert zero efforts at certain battlefields due to spillovers from active nearby battlefields. Our results suggest that the network structure of the conflict may influence strategic behavior, but does not necessarily affect the overall outcome of the conflict. We discuss the robustness of these network-neutral findings in several model extensions.