International Game Theory Review

This paper presents selected contributions from the 6th Meeting on Game Theory and Practice Dedicated to Development, Natural Resources and the Environment that was held in Zaragoza (Spain) from 10 to 12 of July 2006. The dramatic increase in the application and use of game theory models for policy making in natural resources and the environment justifies the attention that is devoted to such topics. We provide examples for such applications, underlying the role they played. The contributions of the papers in this special section and the links between them are presented, together with a short synthesis of the range of contributions that are worth mentioning and would support policy making in fishery, water, and environmental regulation.

The paper analyzes strategic behavior in a two-stage environmental choice problem under different information scenarios. Given uncertainty about environmental cost and irreversibility of development, "learning without destroying" emerges from strategic competition when information is endogenous and publicly available. This happens since agents trade off the higher payoff of being the first-mover against the potentially free acquisition of endogenous information without developing their own environmental endowment. We prove that in a 2X2 dynamic environmental game with payoff uncertainty and irreversibility publicly available endogenous information could lead players to destroy less in aggregate terms with respect to the case in which information is exogenous.

In this paper we consider a special class of n-person potential games and investigate partial cooperation between a portion of the players that sign a cooperative agreement. Existence results of partial cooperative equilibria are obtained and some possible applications are discussed, particularly a Cournot oligopoly and an international water resources management model.

This contribution addresses the fundamental critique in Dinar et al. [1992, Theory and Decision32] on the use of game theory in river basin management: People are reluctant to monetary transfers unrelated to water prices and game theoretic solutions impose a computational burden. For the bilateral alternating-offers model, a single optimization program significantly reduces the computational burden. Furthermore, water prices and property rights result from exploiting the Second Welfare Theorem. Both issues are discussed and applied to a bilateral version of the theoretical river basin model in Ambec and Sprumont [2002, Journal of Economic Theory107]. Directions for future research are provided.

We consider a repeated regulation model in an oligopoly under asymmetric information with pollution. An iterative procedure is proposed where the regulator designs stationary taxes, and firms are not required to be perfectly rational. They can form and update simple beliefs about their competitors' aggregate output at each period. Two versions of the mechanism are provided depending on whether firms behave adaptively or with perfect foresight. Conditions under which the procedure converges to a unique steady state are provided. It is proved that there exists a suitable stationary tax policy that enables the firms to adjust to socially optimal choices in the long run. The tax rates of both versions are typically strictly less than the ones that result from a full information, Nash implementation. Moreover, in the myopic case, the tax rate decreases as the number of firms increases. We discuss problems relating to the potential implementation of the procedure.

In this paper the management of straddling fish stocks is approached through a coalition game in partition function form. A two-stage game is applied, assuming ex ante symmetric players and the classical Gordon-Schaefer bioeconomic model. It is shown that the game is characterized by positive externalities — the merger of coalitions increases the payoffs of players who belong to other coalitions. A key result is that, apart from the case of two players, the grand coalition is not a Nash equilibrium outcome. Furthermore, in the case of three or more players the only Nash equilibrium coalition structure is the one formed by singletons. The results indicate that the prospects of cooperation in straddling stock fisheries are low if players can free ride cooperative agreements. Thus, in order to protect cooperation, under the aegis of regional fishery management organizations, unregulated fishing must be prevented.

This paper applies game theory to address the problem of allocating profits among fishing nations, once the countries concerned have expressed an interest in achieving an agreement through a Regional Fishery Management Organization (RFMO). Proposing the population monotonic allocation scheme as management rule for division of profits, we argue that existing RFMOs can be expanded by means of the Shapley value. We also show that adjustment from the Nash equilibrium to sustainable or more efficient can be achieved by means of the proportional rule without harming any of the countries involved.