The present note analyzes the Simultaneous Ascending Bid Auction with arbitrarily many bidders with decreasing marginal valuations under complete information. We show that the game is solvable by iterated elimination of weakly dominated strategies if the efficient allocation assigns at least one...

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in contestants' investment costs affects the competition intensity in a dynamic elimination contest. Theory predicts that the absolute level of investment costs has no effect on the competition intensity in homogeneous interactions. Relative cost...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

This paper investigates the effects of different prize structures on the effort choices of participants in two-stage elimination contests. A format with a single prize is shown to maximize total effort over both stages, but induces low effort in stage 1 and high effort in stage 2. By contrast, a...

In classic game theory, agents use mixed strategies in the form of objective and probabilistically precise devices to conceal their actions. We introduce the larger set of probabilistically imprecise devices as strategies and study the consequences for the basic results of normal form games....