We consider the design of a contest in which the prize may motivate not only productive efforts, but also some damaging aggressive behavior by contestants. The organizer must choose prizes and an enforcement regime defined as a limit on how much aggressiveness will be tolerated and the...

Gladiatorial combat was in reality a lot less lethal than it is depicted in the cinema. This short paper highlights how cooperative strategies could have prevailed in the arenas, which is generally what happened during the Games. Cooperation in the arena corresponded to a situation of the...

We analyze how network effects affect competition in the nascent cryptocurrency market. We do so by examining early dynamics of exchange rates among different cryptocurrencies. While Bitcoin essentially dominates this market, our data suggest no evidence of a winner-take-all effect early in the...

We study, within the framework of game theory, the properties of a spatially distributed population of both predators and preys that may hunt or defend themselves either isolatedly or in group. Specifically, we show that the properties of the spatial Lett-Auger-Gaillard model, when different...

In imperfectly discriminating contests with symmetric valuations, equilibrium payoffs are positive shares of the value of the prize. In contrast to a bargaining situation, players’ shares sum to less than one because a residual share of the value is lost due to rent dissipation. In this paper,...

Individuals face competitive environments daily, and it is important to understand how emotions affect behavior in these environments and resulting economic consequences. Using a two-stage laboratory experiment, I analyze the role of reported emotions in tournament performance and assess how the...

Team Tennis competitions produce aggregate scores for teams, and thus team rankings, based on head-to-head matchups of individual team members. Similar scoring rules can be used to rank any two groups that must be compared on the basis of paired elements. We explore such rules in terms of their...

We investigate whether tournament prizes that depend on joint output ("variable prize tournaments") can alleviate the sabotage problem which is otherwise inherent in tournament struc- tures. In a game-theoretical model with three contestants, we compare fixed-prize tournaments with tournaments...

We study two-sided matching contests with two sets, A and B, each of which includes a finite number of heterogeneous agents with commonly known types. The agents in each set compete in a lottery (Tullock) contest, and then are assortatively matched, namely, the winner of set A is matched with...

Recent developments in information and communication technologies allow candidates for office to engage in sophisticated messaging strategies to influence voter choice. We consider how access to different technologies influence the choice of policy platforms by candidates. We find that when...