It is shown that the n-player lottery contest admits a best-response potential (Voorneveld, 2000, Economics Letters). This is true also when the contest technology reflects the possibility of a draw. The result implies, in particular, the existence of a non-trivial two-player zero-sum game that...

This paper examines multi-battle contests whose extensive form can be represented in terms of a finite state machine. We start by showing that any contest that satisfies our assumptions decomposes into two phases, a principal phase (in which states cannot be revisited) and a concluding...

This paper studies models where the optimal response functions under consideration are non-increasing in endogenous variables, and weakly increasing in exogenous parameters. Such models include games with strategic substitutes, and include cases where additionally, some variables may be...

We present an experiment for the study of learning in a complex task which requires both memorisation and the ability to process several pieces of information. The outcome of an action, for which immediate feedback is given, depends on the context (i.e. one of thirty-two sequences of three...

This paper studies the dynamic construction of a blockchain by competitive miners. In contrast to the literature, we assume a finite time horizon. Moreover, miners are rewarded for blocks that eventually become part of the longest chain. It is shown that popular mining strategies such as...

The paper studies a dynamic communication game in the presence of adverse selection and career concerns. A forecaster of privately known competence, who cares about his reputation, chooses the timing of the forecast regarding the outcome of some future event. We find that in all equilibria in a...

We study communication in a two-player coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria. Prior research demonstrates that efficient coordination is difficult without communication but obtains regularly with (mandatory) costless pre-play messages. In a laboratory experiment, we modify...

This paper studies fictitious play in networks of noncooperative two-person games. We show that continuous-time fictitious play converges to the set of Nash equilibria if the overall n-person game is zero-sum. Moreover, the rate of convergence is 1/T, regardless of the size of the network. In...

We experimentally study settings where an individual may have an incentive to adopt negative beliefs about another's intentions in order to justify egoistic behavior. Our first study uses a game in which a player can take money from an opponent in order to prevent the opponent from subsequently...

The Net Present Value maximizing model shows fallacies and inconsistencies that may be easily unmasked by performing a cognitive analysis of the decision-making process implied by the maximization problem. The model may be conveniently rescued if the maximizing version of the criterion is shunt...