Theme of Workshop：Equilibrium and Mechanism Design in Strategic Environments
Session Chair：Zhigang Cao, Professor, Beijing Jiaotong University
♦ SPEECH1：(Strategic) Elasticity
Zhigang Cao
Professor
Beijing Jiaotong University
Zhigang Cao is a Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University. He received his Ph.D. from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2010, where he subsequently served as an Assistant Research Fellow. In September 2017, he joined the School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University as a Distinguished Professor under the “Outstanding Hundred Talents Program.” His research focuses on cooperative game theory, transportation games, network games, and algorithmic game theory. He has published extensively in leading journals, including Operations Research, Mathematics of Operations Research, Games and Economic Behavior, and Science China: Mathematics. His work has been recognized with several awards, such as the China Information Economics Theory Contribution Award, the Young Scientist Award in Systems Science and Systems Engineering, the China Decision Science Young Scientist Award, and the Guan Zhaozhi Young Researcher Award.
Abstract: We introduce elasticity into game theory. We focus on inelastic games, defined as those with inelastic best-response functions. By applying the contraction mapping theory under Thompson’s metric, we show that inelastic games have almost ideal properties regarding equilibrium existence and uniqueness, global stability, adaptive dynamics, and comparative statics. This framework substantially advances the understanding of elasticity, fixed-point theory, strategic complementarities, and network games. We argue that elasticity is not merely a standard economic measure or a mathematical analogue to the derivative; rather, it serves as a powerful, unifying framework for analyzing strategic interactions and feedback systems. (joint work with Sijie Wang and Feng Zhu)
♦ SPEECH2：Multi-stage Contest Design: Theory and Experiment
Jie Zheng
Professor
Shandong University
Jie Zheng is University Distinguished Professor at Shandong University, and he serves as the Director for the Center for Research on Experimental and Theoretical Economics (CREATE). He is recognized as Distinguished Expert of “Taishan Scholar” Project in Shandong Province, and Junior Scholar of “Changjiang Scholar Award” Project by Ministry of Education of the Chinese Government.
Abstract：We first compare two exisiting multi-stage contest design: a tree design and a pyramid design, both theoretically and experimentally. We then propose a new multi-stage contest design, comprised of a ranking phase and a challenge phase. In the ranking phase, contestants are ranked by nested elimination contest with the winner-leave or loser-leave procedure. In the challenge phase, with the lowest-ranked contestant starting first, subsequent players are then presented with the opportunity to challenge the player directly ahead of them until a winner is determined, who is awarded the prize. We show that such a multi-stage contest design with loser-leave ranking procedure elicits higher aggregate effort than the best desin in the existing literature.
♦ SPEECH3：Buying Votes to Maximize the Potential
Lester Chan
Assistant Professor
Southern University of Science and Technology
Lester Chan is an Assistant Professor at Southern University of Science and Technology Business School. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor in Economics at Xiamen University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 2021. His research interests are microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and political economy, with a focus on contract theory, platforms, voting, and potential games. He has published in various leading journals, including solo-authored papers in The RAND Journal of Economics, Management Science, and Theoretical Economics.
Abstract：This paper revisits the textbook vote buying model in which a buyer offers voters payments to vote for an alternative against their interests under general voting rules. The model admits multiple equilibria: all voters or any maximal losing coalition may vote for it. I show that the model is a potential game, enabling a well-established equilibrium refinement. After refinement, the set of optimal payments is the aspiration core of the dual simple game, concepts from cooperative games. For decisive weighted voting rules, the buyer pays all voters (buying supermajorities) in proportion to their number of votes (Gamson’s Law). My analysis provides a non-cooperative foundation for the nucleolus as a power index.