The global economy and society face a persistent challenge where competition, while often beneficial, can gradually degrade overall value in systems ranging from businesses to international relations. Even when individual participants act rationally or have aligned goals, their cumulative actions frequently create worse outcomes for all involved—a phenomenon observable in environments as diverse as technology races and environmental policy.

Understanding the Competitive Erosion Effect

This research would examine how competitive pressures systematically deteriorate value through three primary mechanisms:

• Resource depletion in arms race scenarios (e.g., advertising spend wars)
• Quality reduction in races to the bottom (e.g., planned obsolescence trends)
• Innovation stifling when competition focuses on regulatory arbitrage

A Cross-Disciplinary Approach

By combining game theory models with empirical case studies, the research could identify:

• Early warning signs of destructive competitive patterns
• Thresholds where healthy competition turns detrimental
• Intervention points where small changes yield disproportionate benefits

Practical Applications and Implementation

The insights could help design new organizational structures and policy frameworks that maintain competitive benefits while reducing systemic losses. For instance, certification systems that reward long-term value creation or antitrust approaches that consider cumulative ecosystem effects rather than just consumer prices.

The research would proceed incrementally, starting with documenting clear case studies before developing predictive models, ensuring practical relevance at each stage. The most promising initial applications might be in digital platform governance and environmental treaty mechanisms where competitive dynamics are particularly pronounced.