Relying on the experimental findings that actual choice behavior often violates the axioms of expected utility theory (EUT), we study non-EUT preferences in a noncooperative game-theoretic framework. In particular, agents’ preferences are represented by the pair of functions suggested in cumulative prospect theory (CPT). Accordingly, three key aspects of CPT are incorporated: subjective probability weighting, loss aversion, and reference dependence. We introduce a correlated equilibrium and two mixed strategy equilibria for agents with CPT preferences. We prove the existence of equilibria for finite normal form games and investigate the sets of equilibria in some examples.

We study the salience and power of reference points in determining the effective anchors and aspirations in bargaining problems. Along this line, we enrich the analysis of the standard bargaining model with two new parameters: the first parameter can be interpreted as the effectiveness (or salience) of the reference point in determining the anchor, whereas the second parameter can be interpreted as its effectiveness in shaping agents' aspirations. Utilizing these parameters, we provide a unifying framework for the study of bargaining problems with a reference point. The two-parameter family of bargaining solutions we obtain encompasses some well-known solutions as special cases. We offer multiple characterizations for each individual member of this family as well as two characterizations for the whole solution family in bilateral bargaining problems.

We set up a rich bilateral bargaining model with four salient points (disagreement point, ideal point, reference point, and tempered aspirations point), where the disagreement point and the utility possibilities frontier are endogenously determined. This model allows us to compare two bargaining solutions that use reference points, the Gupta-Livne solution and the tempered aspirations solution, in terms of Pareto efficiency in a strategic framework. Our main result shows that the weights solutions place on the disagreement point do not directly imply a unique efficiency ranking in this bargaining problem with a reference point. In particular, the introduction of a reference point brings one more degree of freedom to the model which requires also the difference in the weights placed on the reference point to be considered in reaching an efficiency ranking.

We present a model of race with multiple players and study players' effort choices and expected prizes in equilibrium. We show that, in equilibrium, once any two players win one battle each, the remaining players do not exert any effort anymore. This turns the continuation game into a two-player race. This is different than the results in previous two-player models of race, which report that all states of the game are reached with positive probabilities. We also provide a set of comparative static results on the effects of the number of players and the victory threshold.

This article contributes to the game-theoretic analysis of tourism supply chains. We start with a baseline model including three types of agents: (a) one theme park, (b) multiple accommodation providers, and (c) multiple tour operators. We investigate the strategic dynamics (i.e., collaboration and competition) embedded in a market with two different tourism supply chains, and then we extend our model to an infinite-horizon repeated game arguing that agents would face the same decision problem in each week of every holiday season in each year. We show how agents in a tourism supply chain end up with higher profits in any given period of a repeated game compared with their profits in the static version of the game.