Operations Research 2025
Abstract Submission

77. Optimal control of cartel violence: Multiple equilibria, narrow corridors, and weak Skiba curves

Invited abstract in session TA-4: Optimality Conditions and Optimal Control, stream Continuous and Global Optimization.

Thursday, 8:45-10:15
Room: H6

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Gustav Feichtinger
Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology
2. Jonathan Caulkins
H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy & Management, Carnegie Mellon University
3. Gian Maria Campedelli
Fondazione Bruno Kessler
4. Dieter Grass
Vienna University of Technology
5. Rafael Prieto-Curiel
Complexity Science Hub
6. Gernot Tragler
Institute for Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology
7. Stefan Wrzaczek
Economic Frontiers, Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Abstract

We present an optimal control model for evaluating how Mexico might best use two instruments (security measures and social programs) to control a pair of criminal cartels that are in lethal conflict with each other. For our model and parameters being made as realistic as possible, our analysis is meant to provide guidance to the Mexican government. In this presentation we will mostly focus on variations on our model and parameters that reveal interesting structural features, because we believe that the basic architecture of our model is intrinsically interesting to the optimal control community - both with respect to the structure of the solutions and their economic interpretation. Our results are derived with the help of bifurcation analyses and include solutions with as many as ten equilibria, some separated by Skiba curves. A highlight of our analysis is the existence of triple Skiba points as well as of 'narrow corridors'. Since the pathbreaking work of the nobel price winners Acemoglu and Robinson, the occurrence of the latter admit interesting insights into the economic behavior of pertinent processes.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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