The protracted political dispute between South Korea and Japan over the wartime brothels called “comfort stations” obscures the contractual dynamics involved. These dynamics reflected the straightforward logic of the “credible commitments” so basic to elementary game theory. The brothel owners and potential prostitutes faced a problem: the brothel needed credibly to commit to a contractual structu
![Contracting for sex in the Pacific War](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/54230e384d961cc468e9ab88997fd9654a0796df/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fars.els-cdn.com%2Fcontent%2Fimage%2F1-s2.0-S0144818822X00033-cov150h.gif)