Simple Contributions of Game Theory to the Analysis of Consumer Boycotts

Consumer boycotts are commonly used by citizens protesting against unfair environmental, social, or health practices by firms. Game theory offers simple tools to analyze the impact and the potential for success of such actions. Consumer boycotts may be viewed as a war of attrition between a group of consumers and the targeted firm. Focusing on environmental boycotts, this chapter shows that a simple trade-off between the consumers' hurting capacity and their opportunity cost of boycotting makes the potential for success of a boycott quite low