Arduini, Francesca;
(2025)
Applications of Game Theory to Policy-Relevant Questions.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Game theory is a versatile and powerful tool that can help us shed light on a variety of important, policy-relevant questions. In this thesis, I use game theory to develop novel methodologies to answer three economic questions of substantial relevance to institutions including governments and courts. The first two chapters are grounded in the static collective household model, a widely used cooperative game theoretic model of family decision-making. In the first chapter, I develop an innovative approach to estimating how families share resources. This allows me to estimate inequality measures, such as poverty rates, at the individual level. By contrast, standard inequality measures, used to guide and evaluate policy, only take into account inequality between households. This can lead to underestimating levels of inequality, masking important dimensions of heterogeneity, and incorrect conclusions about trends of inequality over time and the impact of specific policies. I apply my methodology to data on UK heterosexual working couples, finding that women are more than 20% more likely than men to be in poverty. My second chapter draws on the same underlying model, but applies it to a novel application in environmental economics. This is the first paper to extend a household bargaining model to a setting with greenhouse gas emissions. We show women's purchasing behaviour is consistent with women preferring more environmentally-friendly goods and services than men. We estimate that, if the average UK heterosexual working couple transitioned to gender-equal bargaining, this would lower household emissions by more than 2%. The third chapter tackles a question that has been brought up in several antitrust cases, in a variety of jurisdictions. I use non-cooperative game theory to debunk a common misconception that focal pricing (charging only special prices e.g. ending in 9s) reduces pass-through of input cost changes to consumers.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Applications of Game Theory to Policy-Relevant Questions |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210675 |
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