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Among the many perspectives to analyze war, such as rational actor, organizational process, governmental politics and ethics, the perspective that actually incorporates the costs and benefits into a systematic theoretical structure has hardly been analyzed. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the costs and benefits perspective.

Three kinds of value are distinguished, i.e. human, economic and influence. Different actors (politicians, populations, stakeholders, etc). assign different weights to the three kinds of value. Six gradually more complicated models are developed. The first subtracts losses from gains for the three kinds of value. Thereafter, the paper accounts for multiple periods, time discounting, attitude towards risk, multiple stakeholders, subcategories for the three kinds of value, sequential decision-making and game theory.

The rich theoretical structure enables assessing costs and benefits more systematically and illuminatingly. The cost benefit analysis is illustrated with the 2003-2011 Iraq War. The paper estimates gained and lost value of human lives, economic value and influence value, and show how different weights impact the decision of whether to initiate war differently.

The paper provides scientists and policy makers with a theoretical structure within which to evaluate the costs and benefits of war, accounting for how different actors estimate weights, the future, risk and a variety of parameter values differently.

The article develops a model to interpret the 2010–2018 financial crisis in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus, and the loan programs from the IL (International Lender; i.e. the European Union, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund).

For each country, an isoelastic utility with constant relative risk aversion is assumed. For the IL a Cobb Douglas utility is assumed with consumption, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to debt ratio, and market stability as inputs, accounting for time discounting. This article applies two methods to assess the empirics. The first method considers the IL's strategy as a whole over the 2010–2018 period. The second method assumes that the IL maximizes its utility in one period to determine its optimal loan, accounting for the empirics in that period, and the debt in the previous period.

For the first method, when the output elasticity in the IL's Cobb Douglas utility is high favoring consumption, the IL prefers offering a higher loan than its actual loan. Otherwise the IL prefers to offer no loan. The output elasticity at which the IL prefers to offer a loan is lowest for Greece, second lowest for Cyprus, third lowest for Portugal, and highest for Ireland and Spain. A high loan to Greece over a larger range of the output elasticity for Greece's consumption is supported by Greece being prioritized through the loan program. For the second method, the IL prefers to offer no loan to Greece which is too burdened with debt. Thus, the first method seems preferable, considering the entire duration of the crisis holistically.

The article offers a novel perspective of how to assess debt crises, enabling the IL to weigh various factors such as consumption, GDP, loan offered, and each country's debt to credit markets.

This chapter analyses efforts exerted and utilities obtained in a double lawsuit. This is a usual situation when insurance companies are involved in damage compensation. A victim files the first lawsuit against its insurance company for coverage. If the victim loses, there are no further lawsuits. If the victim wins, the insurance company files the second lawsuit against the perpetrator to recover its expenses.

The situation is described as a two-period game, which is solved with backward induction. The model is based on the Hirshleifer and Osborne (2001) litigation success function that expresses influence of the counterparts’ efforts on the outcome of a lawsuit.

The chapter analyses the optimal resource allocations in each lawsuit as functions of effort unit costs, the value of each lawsuit and the contest intensities in the lawsuits. It is shown that a one-period game where the victim, the insurance company and the perpetrator choose their efforts simultaneously and independently gives the same solution as the two-period game.

In 2008 in the United States 15 million lawsuits were filed. Several of these were linked in the sense that subsequent lawsuits depend on the outcomes of earlier lawsuits.

Lawsuits are commonly analysed separately. The chapter analyses in a novel manner the implications of two linked lawsuits referred to as a double lawsuit.

Analyses self‐interest and sympathy in game‐theoretic terms. Evaluates the relative weight of self‐interest and sympathy in the theories of Hobbes, Hume and Adam Smith in an economic framework. Demonstrates through game‐theoretic tools that sympathy as an actuating motive in human nature gives rise to human interaction having other and, for organizations and societies, more beneficial characteristics than does merely self‐interested interaction. Uses the emphasis on the time factor and the importance of the future in Hume’s more than in Hobbes’ theory to show how co‐operation can emerge in large organizations. Introduces government or an organizational structure to further induce co‐operative behaviour.

Lays out a framework for analysing ethics in organizations. Relying on methodological individualism, introduces five building blocks for the framework: self‐interest, individual rationality, sequential rationality, incentive compatibility, and reputation. Uncritical use of the self‐interest model may induce framing effects, blinding less cautious users to important ethical dimensions. Illustrates the richness and “ethical flavour” of an appropriately considered self‐interest model through focusing one of the individual agent’s real interests in a broad sense, through the use of the time factor in the building blocks, and through suggesting how the individual agent can interpret the value systems in her surroundings.

This paper aims to assess the impact of the presence/absence of risk management practices on the risk of merger and acquisition (M&A) failure.

An agency theoretic perspective is adopted, along with a mixed-methods approach to study managerial complexity beyond simply “good” and “bad”. The focus is on an agency conflicts.

The authors first present an integrated framework that classifies managerial behaviour and risk management, where M&A bids can become vehicles for maximising managerial benefits rather than shareholder value. The authors proceed to consider M&A activity that benefits both managers and shareholders in the presence of risk management strategies.

The paper highlights the benefits of multiple paradigms and research paths that address dimensions captured by an agency theoretic perspective.

The authors regard this paper as having particular significance in that the global financial crisis has impacted M&A activities and objectives, shifting the employment and related risks faced by managers.

The paper suggests future research paths to advance the understanding of the complex behaviour of managers involved in M&A activities that go beyond the classification of “good” and “bad” managers.