http://hdl.handle.net/2451/42230 2026-09-01T22:02:23Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/76046 Title: Divide-and-choose games and the Shapley value Authors: Van Essen, Matt; Wooders, John Abstract: We establish an equivalence between two classic approaches to fairness: the Shapley value and divide-and-choose. We study the allocation of a single indivisible item among N players with heterogeneous values, where the player receiving the item compensates the others. On the cooperative side, we introduce sharing games, in which players are partitioned into syndicates and a coalition's value is determined by the highest-valued player accessible through its members' syndicates. On the procedural side, we introduce an N-player divide-and-choose game inspired by Kuhn's classic cake-cutting procedure. Our main result links the two approaches: for every ordering of proposers in the divide-and-choose game, there is a unique assortative syndicate structure for which the Shapley value of the corresponding sharing game coincides with the payoffs under maxmin-perfect play. Conversely, the Shapley value of every assortative sharing game can be implemented in a divide-and-choose game with an appropriate ordering of proposers. The equivalence provides a procedural foundation for the Shapley value and a cooperative interpretation of fairness in divide-and-choose. 2026-08-10T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/76045 Title: The family origins of the gender gap in competitiveness Authors: Dariel, Aurélie; Ham, John; Nikiforakis, Nikos; Stüber, Robert Abstract: The gender gap in competitiveness predicts disparities in life outcomes, yet its origins remain unclear. We investigate whether the gap originates within the family by exploiting quasi-experimental variation in sibling presence and sibling sex composition. We combine this variation with an incentivized measure of competitiveness in two culturally distinct populations to identify their causal effects on the gender gap. In a representative U.S. sample (N = 2,471), first-born women with younger brothers are far less likely to compete than those with younger sisters—who compete as often as men—driving the gender gap. In China (N = 421), the gap appears only among cohorts born before the One-Child Policy, who grew up with siblings. In both samples, the gap is concentrated in households with traditional gender norms. Our findings point to gendered upbringing within the family as one origin of the gender gap in competitiveness. 2026-08-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75857 Title: Transcribing Machines: HTR as a Question of Critical AI Authors: Wrisley, David Joseph Abstract: This talk examines Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) not as a neutral tool of transcription, but as a site where salient debates of Critical AI emerge. HTR, it has been argued, is perhaps the most successful form of AI introduced into the archive (Neudecker). Yet, while it promises scaled access to the handwritten unread, it also unsettles traditional scholarly authority, raising fundamental questions about who produces and standardizes the creation of searchable text. Drawing on multilingual, multi-community experiences with HTR, I argue that while these systems open up important critical perspectives in the computational study of texts, they also reshape authority and expertise under which documentary knowledge is produced. One of the central questions of this talk is whether the humanities community is treating automated transcription too simply as a technical problem, while overlooking forms of extraction hidden beneath promises of access. Training corpora—often drawn from wealthy institutions of the Global North—privilege certain scripts, languages, and archival traditions, making the question of whose data and models are centered a critical one. As HTR transforms select handwritten materials into searchable corpora–readable by both humans and machines–it also runs the risk of deepening the gap between well-resourced textual traditions and those whose scripts or archival conditions remain difficult to computationally process. These inequalities are not merely technical, but they shape the conditions under which the past can be discovered and known. Taken together, these tensions point toward a larger question about the future of HTR on which we can only speculate: will it remain shaped by scholarly commitments to transparency and context, or increasingly by AI infrastructures designed for scalability and generalized results? Automation may eliminate some older scholarly practices (Dubreuil) such as manual transcription, but it may also compel the humanities to focus more strongly on critical questions of systems, infrastructure, and methodological inclusivity. 2026-06-12T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75853 Title: The value of strategic unpredictability: A natural experiment from baseball Authors: Chernulich, Aleksei; Gauriot, Romain; Wooders, John Abstract: Strategic situations in which decision-makers need to be unpredictable are common. This paper introduces a measure of the value of strategic unpredictability for a player and shows that it determines (i) the player’s incentive to follow equilibrium and (ii) the power of statistical tests of whether the player’s opponent follows their equilibrium mixture. We use data from a unique natural experiment in Major League Baseball to estimate the value of strategic unpredictability for pitchers. We find that the Houston Astros gained a significant advantage by stealing opposing teams’ signs, thereby reducing opposing pitchers’ ability to be unpredictable. 2026-06-30T00:00:00Z