3.9 In 2007, Italy announced that an Italian journalist, Daniel Mastrogiacomo, who had been held hostage for 15 days by the Taliban in Afghanistan, had been ransomed for 5 Taliban prisoners. Governments in many nations denounced the act as a bad idea because it rewarded terrorism and encouraged more abductions. Consequently, the Afghanistan government announced that it would no longer make such trades (“Afghanistan: Government Pledges End to Hostage Deals,” Radio Free Europe, April 16, 2007). Use an extensive-form game tree to analyze the basic arguments. Can you draw any hard-and-fast conclusions about whether the Italians’

actions were a good or bad idea? (Hint: Does your answer depend on the relative weight one puts on future costs and benefits relative to those today?)