Behavioral Game Theory

Britain is currently being battered by strong rain and heavy floods. I saw it at first hand on my morning walk around the valley: The stream in the valley was getting higher and higher with landowners and the council trying to do something to help the water escape. As I was watching these efforts, getting soaked by the rain, my thoughts turned to a hot cup of tea, and the weak link game.     The weakest link public good game (also known as the minimum effort game) was first analyzed by Jack Hirshleifer in a paper published in 1983 in Public Choice . He began with the story of Anarchia – a circular island prone to flooding. To explain the story, imagine four people live on the island. Each person owns a portion of land and must decide how much effort to put into building a dyke on their land. If they all build a high dyke - the island cannot flood. If one of them builds a low dyke - the whole island floods. The name, weakest link, captures the fact that the minimum contribution is w