An Experimental Investigation of Colonel Blotto Games

Subhasish Chowdhury, Dan Kovenock and Roman Sheremeta

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This article examines behavior in the two-player, constant-sum Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric resources in which players maximize the expected number of battlefields won. The experimental results support the main qualitative predictions of the theory. In the auction treatment, where winning a battlefield is deterministic, disadvantaged players use a “guerilla warfare” strategy which stochastically allocates zero resources to a subset of battlefields. Advantaged players employ a “stochastic complete coverage” strategy, allocating random, but positive, resource levels across the battlefields. In the lottery treatment, where winning a battlefield is probabilistic, both players divide their resources equally across all battlefields. However, we also find interesting behavioral deviations from the theory and discuss their implications.

Keywords: Colonel Blotto; conflict resolution; contest theory; multi-dimensional resource allocation; rent-seeking; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D72 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-09-16
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Economic Theory 52 (2013): pp. 833-861

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Related works:
Journal Article: An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games (2013)
Working Paper: An Experimental Investigation of Colonel Blotto Games (2009)
Working Paper: An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games (2009)
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