National Science Foundation

The hiring of public sector employees is an important part of the bureaucratic process. Political incentives to target government jobs to certain populations or constituencies have the potential to influence the manner in which these jobs, as well as public goods, are distributed. Thus, understanding the distribution of bureaucratic jobs can provide insight into the functioning of governance. The project will examine interactions between the legislature and bureaucracy, as well as constituent relations and political incentives, to study the distribution of bureaucratic jobs.

Game theory has become an indispensable tool in the analysis of strategic interactions between people, groups, and nations. It rests on Nash equilibrium as its central concept. In a Nash equilibrium, (1) each player?s action is best, given his or her beliefs over others? actions and (2) those beliefs are correct. However, even under the idealized conditions of laboratory experiments, there are systematic deviations from the predictions of classical game theory.

Federal agencies offer American innovators at least two different sources of support: first, seed money and consulting services that would be all but inaccessible to early stage entrepreneurs at competitive market prices; and second, introductions to potential partners in collaborative networks. Given that innovation demands collaboration as well as competition, the latter contributions are no less important than the former. But they are decidedly less well known and understood.