The Give and Take Game: Analysis of a Resource Sharing Game

We analyse Give and Take, a multi-stage resource sharing game to be played between two players. The payoff is dependent on the possession of an indivisible and durable resource, and in each stage players may either do nothing or, depending on their roles, give the resource or take it. Despite these simple rules, we show that this game has interesting complex dynamics. Unique to Give and Take is the existence of multiple Pareto optimal profiles that can also be Nash equilibria, and a built-in punishment action. This game allows us to study cooperation in sharing an indivisible and durable resource. Since there are multiple strategies to cooperate, Give and Take provides a base to investigate coordination under implicit or explicit agreements. We discuss its position in face of other games and real world situations that are better modelled by it. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of the game for the range of admissible parameter values. We show that, when taking is costly for both players, cooperation emerges as players prefer to give the resource.