Olson vs. Coase: Coalitional Worth in Conflict

16 Pages Posted: 22 Sep 2003

See all articles by Joan Maria Esteban

Joan Maria Esteban

Autonomous University of Barcelona

Jozsef Sakovics

The University of Edinburgh

Abstract

We analyze a model of conflict with endogenous choice of effort, where subsets of the contenders may force the resolution to be sequential: First the alliance fights it out with the rest and ­ in case they win ­ later they fight it out among themselves. For three-player games, we find that it will not be in the interest of any two of them to form an alliance. We obtain this result under two different scenarios: equidistant preferences with varying relative strengths, and vicinity of preferences with equal distribution of power. We conclude that the commonly made assumption of super-additive coalitional worth is suspect.

Keywords: Coalition formation, conflict, alliance

Suggested Citation

Esteban, Joan Maria and Sakovics, Jozsef, Olson vs. Coase: Coalitional Worth in Conflict. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=394382 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.394382

Joan Maria Esteban (Contact Author)

Autonomous University of Barcelona ( email )

Campus UAB
E-08193 Bellaterra
Spain
34 93 580 6612 (Phone)
34 93 580 1452 (Fax)

Jozsef Sakovics

The University of Edinburgh ( email )

30 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh, EH8 9JT, Scotland
United Kingdom

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