IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v5y2014i1p53-89d33342.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Schelling, von Neumann, and the Event that Didn’t Occur

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander J. Field

    (Department of Economics, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA)

Abstract

Thomas Schelling was recognized by the Nobel Prize committee as a pioneer in the application of game theory and rational choice analysis to problems of politics and international relations. However, although he makes frequent references in his writings to this approach, his main explorations and insights depend upon and require acknowledgment of its limitations. One of his principal concerns was how a country could engage in successful deterrence. If the behavioral assumptions that commonly underpin game theory are taken seriously and applied consistently, however, nuclear adversaries are almost certain to engage in devastating conflict, as John von Neumann forcefully asserted. The history of the last half century falsified von Neumann’s prediction, and the “event that didn’t occur” formed the subject of Schelling’s Nobel lecture. The answer to the question “why?” is the central concern of this paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander J. Field, 2014. "Schelling, von Neumann, and the Event that Didn’t Occur," Games, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-37, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:53-89:d:33342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/5/1/53/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/5/1/53/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas C. Schelling, 2006. "An Astonishing Sixty Years: The Legacy of Hiroshima," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 929-937, September.
    2. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    3. Field, Alexander J., 2007. "Beyond foraging: behavioral science and the future of institutional economics," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 265-291, December.
    4. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    5. Alexander Field, 2014. "Prosociality and the military," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 129-154, July.
    6. Alexander Field, 2008. "Why multilevel selection matters," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 203-238, December.
    7. Rubinstein, Ariel, 2001. "A theorist's view of experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 615-628, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karl Sörenson, 2023. "A Misfit model: irrational deterrence and bounded rationality," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 94(4), pages 575-591, May.
    2. Pradeep, Siddhartha, 2019. "Game theory, Strategies and the convoluted triangle - India, Pakistan, Kashmir," EconStor Preprints 195929, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manzini Paola & Mariotti Marco, 2006. "A Vague Theory of Choice over Time," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-27, October.
    2. Theocharis Grigoriadis & Friedrich Heinemann, 2013. "Origins of Reform Resistance and the Southern European Regime. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 20," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46881, April.
    3. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: A Study of Response Times," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1243-1259, October.
    4. Steven Beckman & Lanxin Chen & Greg DeAngelo & W. James Smith & Xieting Zhang, 2011. "Microeconomics and Psychology," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 255-269, July.
    5. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "A Psychological Perspective on Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 162-168, May.
    6. Alexander Field, 2014. "Prosociality and the military," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 129-154, July.
    7. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    8. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    9. Terence C. Burnham & Aimee Dunlap & David W. Stephens, 2015. "Experimental Evolution and Economics," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(4), pages 21582440156, November.
    10. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: Response Times Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000001011, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Achtziger, Anja & Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Wagner, Alexander K., 2016. "The impact of self-control depletion on social preferences in the ultimatum game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-16.
    12. Lillemo, Shuling Chen, 2014. "Measuring the effect of procrastination and environmental awareness on households' energy-saving behaviours: An empirical approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 249-256.
    13. Michael Seiler, 2014. "The Effect of Perceived Lender Characteristics and Market Conditions on Strategic Mortgage Defaults," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 256-270, February.
    14. Giuseppe Attanasi & Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Aldo Montesano, 2015. "Bargaining over Strategies of Non-Cooperative Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-26, August.
    15. Robison, Lindon J. & Hanson, Steven D., 1995. "Social Capital and Economic Cooperation," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 43-58, July.
    16. Anne Corcos & Yorgos Rizopoulos, 2011. "Is prosocial behavior egocentric? The “invisible hand” of emotions," Post-Print halshs-01968213, HAL.
    17. Burks, Stephen V. & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Verhoogen, Eric, 2003. "Playing both roles in the trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 195-216, June.
    18. Seema Kacker & Tin Aung & Dominic Montagu & David Bishai, 2021. "Providers preferences towards greater patient health benefit is associated with higher quality of care," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 271-294, September.
    19. William S. Schulze & Michael H. Lubatkin & Richard N. Dino, 2002. "Altruism, agency, and the competitiveness of family firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 247-259.
    20. Mazen Hassan & Sarah Mansour & Stefan Voigt & May Gadallah, 2022. "When Syria was in Egypt’s land: Egyptians cooperate with Syrians, but less with each other," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 337-362, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:53-89:d:33342. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.