Making an Arranged Marriage Work: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

Abstract

In this note, we analyze a simple game model of effort and time investment in an arranged marriage where the goal of the two partners making this investment is to create a better marital relationship. We first specify the best response functions of the two married partners. Next, we solve for the Nash equilibrium and then argue that this equilibrium is unique. Finally, we delineate an interesting connection between the two best response functions in our model and the corresponding best response functions in the well known two-player Cournot game.