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Budget and Effort Choice in Sequential Colonel Blotto Campaigns

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  • Kai A Konrad

Abstract

Military campaigns are studied as dynamic best-of-three contests, where final victory is attributed to the first player who wins a critical number of battles. The article studies how overall budget constraints and different assumptions about the destruction of military resources used in a given battle affect the dynamics and overall equilibrium resources in a best-of-three contest. Discouragement effects for players who lag behind and the showdown effect when the campaign reaches a more decisive state vanish if players have to choose an overall budget and can draw on what is left from this budget in the course of the campaign. This is true both in a context in which the resources allocated to a battle are used up there as well as if player’s battle resources carry over to future battles. If only the winner’s contest resources carryover, this generates precautionary behavior of the leading player and all-in behavior for the player lagging behind.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai A Konrad, 2018. "Budget and Effort Choice in Sequential Colonel Blotto Campaigns," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(4), pages 555-576.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:64:y:2018:i:4:p:555-576.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ify010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2023. "How to preempt attacks in multi-front conflict with limited resources," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 305(1), pages 493-500.
    2. Nejat Anbarc{i} & Kutay Cingiz & Mehmet S. Ismail, 2020. "Proportional resource allocation in dynamic n-player Blotto games," Papers 2010.05087, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    3. Kjell Hausken, 2023. "Two-period Colonel Blotto contest with cumulative investments over variable assets with resource constraints," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(11), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Clark, Derek J. & Nilssen, Tore, 2018. "Keep on fighting: The dynamics of head starts in all-pay auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 258-272.
    5. Konishi, Hideo & Pan, Chen-Yu & Simeonov, Dimitar, 2022. "Equilibrium player choices in team contests with multiple pairwise battles," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 274-287.
    6. Klumpp, Tilman & Konrad, Kai A. & Solomon, Adam, 2019. "The dynamics of majoritarian Blotto games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 402-419.
    7. Anbarci, Nejat & Cingiz, Kutay & Ismail, Mehmet S., 2023. "Proportional resource allocation in dynamic n-player Blotto games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 94-100.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Colonel Blotto; campaign; multi-battle conflict; best-of-n contest; discouragement effect; decisiveness; precautionary behavior; all-in effect; sequential battles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

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