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...

We study strategic investment decisions in multi-stage contests with heterogeneous players. Our theoretical model of a round-robin rank-order tournament predicts that players conserve resources in a current contest to spend more in the subsequent contest if the degree of heterogeneity in the...

We study strategic investment decisions in multi-stage contests with heterogeneous players. Our theoretical model of a round-robin rank-order tournament predicts that players conserve resources in a current contest to spend more in the subsequent contest if the degree of heterogeneity in the...

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...

We provide new experimental evidence which suggests an asymmetric discouragement effect in lottery contests with heterogeneous abilities. Compared to a symmetric contest, subjects invest less effort when facing a stronger opponent, but they invest the same when facing a weaker opponent. Our...

I examine the impact of risk preferences on efforts and winning probabilities in generalised Tullock contests between two players. The theoretical analysis yields two main results. First, I specify a sufficient condition on the agents’ comparative prudence under which a higher common level of...

I examine sequential round-robin tournaments with three and four symmetric players. Each player is matched once with each other player. If the matches are organized as Tullock contests (all-pay auctions), the tournament will be almost fair (highly discriminatory): subject to the position of...

This paper examines the chance of winning a Tullock-contest when participants differ in both their talent and their attitude towards risk. For the case of CARA preferences, it is shown that the winning probability may be higher for a low-skilled agent with a low degree of risk aversion than for...

We investigate overlapping contests in multi-divisional organizations in which an individual's effort simultaneously determines the outcome of several contests on different hierarchical levels. We show that individuals in smaller units are advantaged in the grand (organization-wide) contest for...

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...