Gradualism and Irreversibility

Gradualism and Irreversibility

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Gradualism and Irreversibility1

This paper considers a class of two-player dynamic games in which each player controls a one-dimensional variable which we interpret as a level of cooperation. In the base model, there is an irreversibility constraint stating that this variable can never be reduced, only increased. It otherwise satis...es the usual discounted repeated game assumptions. Under certain restrictions on the payo¤ fu...

Gradualism in dynamic agenda formation

We analyze a dynamic model of agenda formation in which players compete in each period to place their ideal policies on the agenda. In each period, with some probability, a decision maker takes an action from the agenda. We show that in any markov equilibrium of this game, players with extreme ideal policies will always compete to be in the agenda. On the other hand, there is a positive probabi...

Big Bang vs. Gradualism

Age and Death: A Defence of Gradualism.

According to standard comparativist views, death is bad insofar as it deprives someone of goods she would otherwise have had. In The Ethics of Killing, Jeff McMahan argues against such views and in favor of a gradualist account according to which how bad it is to die is a function of both the future goods of which the decedent is deprived and her cognitive development when she dies. Comparativi...