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<article-title>Commitment and Extortion</article-title>
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<author><a href="mailto:harrenst@tcs.ifi.lmu.de"><name>Paul Harrenstein</name></a></author>
<aff>University of Munich 80538 Munich, Germany</aff>

<author><a href="mailto:brandtf@tcs.ifi.lmu.de"><name>Felix Brandt</name></a></author>
<aff>University of Munich 80538 Munich, Germany</aff>

<author><a href="mailto:fischerf@tcs.ifi.lmu.de"><name>Felix Fischer</name></a></author>
<aff>University of Munich 80538 Munich, Germany</aff>
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<title>ABSTRACT</title>
<p>Making commitments, <italic>e.g.</italic>, through promises and threats, enables a
player to exploit the strengths of his own strategic position as well
as the weaknesses of that of his opponents. Which commitments
a player can make with credibility depends on the circumstances.
In some, a player can only commit to the performance of an action,
in others, he can commit himself <italic>conditionally</italic> on the actions
of the other players. Some situations even allow for commitments
on commitments or for commitments to randomized actions. We
explore the formal properties of these types of (conditional) commitment
and their interrelationships. So as to preclude inconsistencies
among conditional commitments, we assume an order in
which the players make their commitments. Central to our analyses
is the notion of an <italic>extortion</italic>, which we define, for a given order
of the players, as a profile that contains, for each player, an optimal
commitment given the commitments of the players that committed
earlier. On this basis, we investigate for different commitment types
whether it is advantageous to commit earlier rather than later, and
how the outcomes obtained through extortions relate to backward
induction and Pareto efficiency.</p>
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