Maxime Menuet, a research associate at the Chair, has published an article in the journal Economic Inquiry on overconfident players in the theoretical framework of wars of attrition.
Maxime Menuet, lecturer at the University of Orléans and Associate Researcher at the Chair, publishes an article in the magazine Economic Inquiry, entitled “Overconfidence and conflict”.
This article studies the causes and duration of conflicts in a theoretical framework for wars of attrition featuring «overconfident» players (overconfidence).
A major result of the theoretical model developed is that overconfidence is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause conflict. Nevertheless, over-confident decision-makers are more likely to initiate conflict, and to remain active in conflict for longer.
This model helps to understand a multitude of conflict situations in the real world. In particular, it shows that (i) the degree of’overconfidence and the duration of the conflict can have a inverted U-shaped relationship, and (ii) the result of the war of attrition can be in favour a weaker player, but overconfident.
