I have just got back to base after an interesting and worthwhile Dispute Review Board Foundation International conference in Santiago, Chile. A topic of particular interest was the use of Dispute Boards in PPP projects.

Most readers of this post will know what a PPP project is, but for those who don’t, I have included a rough guide below[1]. Likewise for those who might like a quick guide to dispute boards[2]. But what has this got to do with game theory, and in particular, prisoner’s dilemma?

I was first introduced to prisoner’s dilemma by the revised version of Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene. It is all to do with iteration, and why, when only the fittest survive, so many organisms, including homo sapiens, will often do selfless things for the benefit of their own kind.

Roughly, it goes like this. A couple of likely lads are engaged in a Continue reading →