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Operations Research 61(3), 2013, pp. 532-543. ; ECollege.xlsm accompanies the paper "Blotto Politics" ; This paper considers abstract election games by the United State Electoral College (USEC). There are two political parties, and the electoral votes in each state go to the party that spends the most money there, with an adjustment for a "head start" that one party or the other may have in that state. The states have unequal numbers of electoral votes, and elections are decided by majority rules. Each party has a known budget, and much depends on the information that informs how that budget is spent. Three situations are considered: (1) one party's spending plan is known to the other, (2) spending is gradually revealed as the parties spend continuously in time, and (3) neither side knows anything about the other's spending. The last situation resembles a Blotto game, hence the title.

The Colonel Blotto game is a two-player constant-sum game in which each player simultaneously distributes her fixed level of resources across a set of contests. In the traditional formulation of the Colonel Blotto game, the players' resources are use it or lose it" in the sense that any resources which are not allocated to one of the contests are forfeited. This paper examines a non-constant-sum version of the Colonel Blotto game which relaxes this use it or lose it feature. We find that if the level of asymmetry between the players' budgets is below a threshold, then the unique set of equilibrium univariate marginal distributions of the non-constant-sum game is equivalent up to an affine transformation to the unique set of equilibrium univariate marginal distributions of the constant-sum game. Once the asymmetry of the players' budgets exceeds the threshold we construct a new equilibrium.

Ce Working Paper fait l'objet d'une publication in Games and Economic Behavior (2017), 106: 239-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.009. ; In a polarized committee, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. By allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues, Storable Votes restores some minority power. We study a model of Storable Votes that highlights the hide-and-seek nature of the strategic game. With communication, the game replicates a classic Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric forces. We call the game without communication a decentralized Blotto game. We characterize theoretical results for this case and test both versions of the game in the laboratory. We find that, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies, the minority wins as frequently as theory predicts. Because subjects understand the logic of the game – minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably – the exact choices are of secondary importance. The result is an endorsement of the robustness of the voting rule.

Ce Working Paper fait l'objet d'une publication in Games and Economic Behavior (2017), 106: 239-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.009. ; In a polarized committee, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. By allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues, Storable Votes restores some minority power. We study a model of Storable Votes that highlights the hide-and-seek nature of the strategic game. With communication, the game replicates a classic Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric forces. We call the game without communication a decentralized Blotto game. We characterize theoretical results for this case and test both versions of the game in the laboratory. We find that, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies, the minority wins as frequently as theory predicts. Because subjects understand the logic of the game – minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably – the exact choices are of secondary importance. The result is an endorsement of the robustness of the voting rule.

Ce Working Paper fait l'objet d'une publication in Games and Economic Behavior (2017), 106: 239-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.009. ; In a polarized committee, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. By allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues, Storable Votes restores some minority power. We study a model of Storable Votes that highlights the hide-and-seek nature of the strategic game. With communication, the game replicates a classic Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric forces. We call the game without communication a decentralized Blotto game. We characterize theoretical results for this case and test both versions of the game in the laboratory. We find that, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies, the minority wins as frequently as theory predicts. Because subjects understand the logic of the game – minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably – the exact choices are of secondary importance. The result is an endorsement of the robustness of the voting rule.

Ce Working Paper fait l'objet d'une publication in Games and Economic Behavior (2017), 106: 239-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.009. ; In a polarized committee, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. By allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues, Storable Votes restores some minority power. We study a model of Storable Votes that highlights the hide-and-seek nature of the strategic game. With communication, the game replicates a classic Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric forces. We call the game without communication a decentralized Blotto game. We characterize theoretical results for this case and test both versions of the game in the laboratory. We find that, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies, the minority wins as frequently as theory predicts. Because subjects understand the logic of the game – minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably – the exact choices are of secondary importance. The result is an endorsement of the robustness of the voting rule.