IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3211.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Attack and Defense of Weakest-Link Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Dan Kovenock J.
  • Brian Roberson
  • Roman M. Sheremeta

Abstract

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker’s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender’s objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest success functions (CSFs): the auction CSF and the lottery CSF. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, under the auction CSF, attackers utilize a stochastic “guerilla warfare” strategy — in which a single random target is attacked — more than 80% of the time. Under the lottery CSF, attackers utilize the stochastic guerilla warfare strategy almost 45% of the time, contrary to the theoretical prediction of an equal allocation of forces across the targets.

Suggested Citation

  • Dan Kovenock J. & Brian Roberson & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2010. "The Attack and Defense of Weakest-Link Networks," CESifo Working Paper Series 3211, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3211.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vincent P. Crawford & Uri Gneezy & Yuval Rottenstreich, 2008. "The Power of Focal Points Is Limited: Even Minute Payoff Asymmetry May Yield Large Coordination Failures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1443-1458, September.
    2. Weinstein Jonathan, 2012. "Two Notes on the Blotto Game," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, March.
    3. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2010. "A simple mechanism for resolving conflict," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 375-391, November.
    4. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    5. Brian Roberson & Dmitriy Kvasov, 2012. "The non-constant-sum Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 397-433, October.
    6. Hausken, Kjell, 2008. "Strategic defense and attack for series and parallel reliability systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 856-881, April.
    7. Klumpp, Tilman & Polborn, Mattias K., 2006. "Primaries and the New Hampshire Effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1073-1114, August.
    8. Kvasov, Dmitriy, 2007. "Contests with limited resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 738-748, September.
    9. Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov & Martin Sefton & Theodore Turocy, 2016. "Majoritarian Blotto contests with asymmetric battlefields: an experiment on apex games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 55-89, January.
    10. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "New Hampshire Effect: behavior in sequential and simultaneous multi-battle contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 325-349, June.
    11. Boyer, Pierre C. & Konrad, Kai A. & Roberson, Brian, 2017. "Targeted campaign competition, loyal voters, and supermajorities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 49-62.
    12. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
    13. Gelder, Alan, 2014. "From Custer to Thermopylae: Last stand behavior in multi-stage contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 442-466.
    14. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    15. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Defense Economics," Handbook of Defense Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 1.
    16. Jan Potters & Casper G. Vries & Frans Winden, 1998. "An experimental examination of rational rent-seeking," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 663-680, Springer.
    17. Christian Ewerhart, 2022. "A “fractal” solution to the chopstick auction," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(4), pages 1025-1041, November.
    18. Baye, Michael R & Kovenock, Dan & de Vries, Casper G, 1994. "The Solution to the Tullock Rent-Seeking Game When R Is Greater Than 2: Mixed-Strategy Equilibria and Mean Dissipation Rates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(3-4), pages 363-380, December.
    19. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    20. Shupp, Robert & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Schmidt, David & Walker, James, 2013. "Resource allocation contests: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 257-267.
    21. Sandler, Todd & Enders, Walter, 2004. "An economic perspective on transnational terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-316, June.
    22. Mago, Shakun D. & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Yates, Andrew, 2013. "Best-of-three contest experiments: Strategic versus psychological momentum," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 287-296.
    23. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2016. "Impulsive Behavior in Competition: Testing Theories of Overbidding in Rent-Seeking Contests," Working Papers 16-21, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    24. Cason, Timothy N. & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Zhang, Jingjing, 2012. "Communication and efficiency in competitive coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 26-43.
    25. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2013. "Overbidding And Heterogeneous Behavior In Contest Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 491-514, July.
    26. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    27. Arad, Ayala & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2012. "Multi-dimensional iterative reasoning in action: The case of the Colonel Blotto game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 571-585.
    28. Yosef Rinott & Marco Scarsini & Yaming Yu, 2012. "A Colonel Blotto Gladiator Game," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 574-590, November.
    29. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2012. "Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Comment," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 507-515, October.
    30. Price, Curtis R. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2011. "Endowment effects in contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 217-219, June.
    31. Davis, Douglas D & Reilly, Robert J, 1998. "Do Too Many Cooks Always Spoil the Stew? An Experimental Analysis of Rent-Seeking and the Role of a Strategic Buyer," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1-2), pages 89-115, April.
    32. Vicki Bier & Santiago Oliveros & Larry Samuelson, 2007. "Choosing What to Protect: Strategic Defensive Allocation against an Unknown Attacker," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(4), pages 563-587, August.
    33. Ewerhart, Christian, 2017. "Contests with small noise and the robustness of the all-pay auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 195-211.
    34. Roman Sheremeta & Jingjing Zhang, 2010. "Can groups solve the problem of over-bidding in contests?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(2), pages 175-197, July.
    35. Sergiu Hart, 2008. "Discrete Colonel Blotto and General Lotto games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 441-460, March.
    36. Rafael Hortala-Vallve & Aniol Llorente-Saguer, 2012. "Pure strategy Nash equilibria in non-zero sum colonel Blotto games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(2), pages 331-343, May.
    37. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    38. Konrad, Kai A. & Kovenock, Dan, 2009. "Multi-battle contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 256-274, May.
    39. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Quantal Response Equilibrium and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 247-272, May.
    40. John Cadigan & Pamela Schmitt, 2010. "Strategic entry deterrence and terrorism: Theory and experimental evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 3-22, April.
    41. Deck, Cary & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2019. "The tug-of-war in the laboratory," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    42. Gelder, Alan & Kovenock, Dan, 2017. "Dynamic behavior and player types in majoritarian multi-battle contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 444-455.
    43. Russell Golman & Scott Page, 2009. "General Blotto: games of allocative strategic mismatch," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 279-299, March.
    44. Hausken, Kjell, 2010. "Strategic Defense and Attack for Series and Parallel Reliability Systems: Reply on Comment," MPRA Paper 25497, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Oct 2010.
    45. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Turocy, Theodore L., 2014. "Overbidding and overspreading in rent-seeking experiments: Cost structure and prize allocation rules," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 224-238.
    46. Dziubiński, Marcin Konrad & Goyal, Sanjeev, 2017. "How do you defend a network?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    47. Brian Roberson, 2006. "The Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, September.
    48. Gneezy, Uri & Smorodinsky, Rann, 2006. "All-pay auctions--an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 255-275, October.
    49. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2010. "Conflicts with Multiple Battlefields," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1246, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    50. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2011. "Contest Design: An Experimental Investigation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 573-590, April.
    51. Scott Macdonell & Nick Mastronardi, 2015. "Waging simple wars: a complete characterization of two-battlefield Blotto equilibria," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(1), pages 183-216, January.
    52. Dziubiński, Marcin & Goyal, Sanjeev, 2013. "Network design and defence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 30-43.
    53. Enders, Walter, 2007. "Terrorism: An Empirical Analysis," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 26, pages 815-866, Elsevier.
    54. Arad Ayala, 2012. "The Tennis Coach Problem: A Game-Theoretic and Experimental Study," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-43, April.
    55. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2018. "The Optimal Defense Of Networks Of Targets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2195-2211, October.
    56. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2017. "Multi‐battle Contests: An Experimental Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 407-425, October.
    57. Curtis R. Price & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2015. "Endowment Origin, Demographic Effects, and Individual Preferences in Contests," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 597-619, September.
    58. Powell, Robert, 2007. "Defending against Terrorist Attacks with Limited Resources," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 527-541, August.
    59. Jack Hirshleifer, 1983. "From weakest-link to best-shot: The voluntary provision of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 371-386, January.
    60. Laslier, Jean-Francois & Picard, Nathalie, 2002. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 106-130, March.
    61. Timothy N. Cason & Roman M. Sheremeta & Jingjing Zhang, 2017. "Asymmetric and endogenous within-group communication in competitive coordination games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 946-972, December.
    62. Brian Roberson, 2008. "Pork-Barrel Politics, Targetable Policies, and Fiscal Federalism," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(4), pages 819-844, June.
    63. Subhasish M Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & David Rojo Arjona & Nathaniel T Wilcox, 2021. "Focality and Asymmetry in Multi-Battle Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1593-1619.
    64. Felix J. Bierbrauer & Pierre C. Boyer, 2016. "Efficiency, Welfare, and Political Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 461-518.
    65. Deck, Cary & Sheremeta, Roman, 2012. "Fight or Flight?," MPRA Paper 52130, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    66. Powell, Robert, 2007. "Allocating Defensive Resources with Private Information about Vulnerability," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 799-809, November.
    67. Duffy, John & Matros, Alexander, 2017. "Stochastic asymmetric Blotto games: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 88-105.
    68. Christopher Harris & John Vickers, 1987. "Racing with Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(1), pages 1-21.
    69. Hausken, Kjell, 2008. "Strategic defense and attack for reliability systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 93(11), pages 1740-1750.
    70. Caroline Thomas, 2018. "N-dimensional Blotto game with heterogeneous battlefield values," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 509-544, May.
    71. Szentes, Balazs & Rosenthal, Robert W., 2003. "Beyond chopsticks: Symmetric equilibria in majority auction games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 278-295, November.
    72. Fonseca, Miguel A., 2009. "An experimental investigation of asymmetric contests," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 582-591, September.
    73. Tyler Moore & Richard Clayton & Ross Anderson, 2009. "The Economics of Online Crime," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 3-20, Summer.
    74. Alcalde, José & Dahm, Matthias, 2010. "Rent seeking and rent dissipation: A neutrality result," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 1-7, February.
    75. Paul Milgrom, 2007. "Package Auctions and Exchanges," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 935-965, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2017. "Multi‐battle Contests: An Experimental Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 407-425, October.
    2. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "New Hampshire Effect: behavior in sequential and simultaneous multi-battle contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 325-349, June.
    3. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    4. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2018. "The Optimal Defense Of Networks Of Targets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2195-2211, October.
    5. Zeynep B. Irfanoglu & Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2014. "The New Hampshire Effect: Behavior in Sequential and Simultaneous Election Contests," Working Papers 14-15, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    6. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    7. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
    8. Deck, Cary & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2019. "The tug-of-war in the laboratory," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Szech, Nora, 2023. "Designing contests between heterogeneous contestants: An experimental study of tie-breaks and bid-caps in all-pay auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    10. Roman Sheremeta, 2018. "Experimental Research on Contests," Working Papers 18-07, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    11. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Sheremeta, Roman & Szech, Nora, 2016. "Designing Contests Between Heterogeneous Contestants: An Experimental Study of Tie-Breaks and Bid-Caps in All-Pay Auctions," MPRA Paper 71202, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2015. "The Optimal Defense of Network Connectivity," Working Papers 15-24, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    13. Cason, Timothy N. & Masters, William A. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2020. "Winner-take-all and proportional-prize contests: Theory and experimental results," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 314-327.
    14. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2016. "The pros and cons of workplace tournaments," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 302-302, October.
    15. Subhasish M Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & David Rojo Arjona & Nathaniel T Wilcox, 2021. "Focality and Asymmetry in Multi-Battle Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1593-1619.
    16. Mago, Shakun D. & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Yates, Andrew, 2013. "Best-of-three contest experiments: Strategic versus psychological momentum," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 287-296.
    17. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2013. "Overbidding And Heterogeneous Behavior In Contest Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 491-514, July.
    18. Curtis R. Price & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2015. "Endowment Origin, Demographic Effects, and Individual Preferences in Contests," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 597-619, September.
    19. Duffy, John & Matros, Alexander, 2017. "Stochastic asymmetric Blotto games: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 88-105.
    20. David Bruner & Caleb Cox & David M. McEvoy & Brock Stoddard, 2022. "Strategic thinking in contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 942-973, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Colonel Blotto; conflict resolution; weakest-link; best-shot; multi-dimensional resource allocation; experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • 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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ces:ceswps:_3211. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.