We study experimentally the effects of cost structure and prize allocation rules on the performance of rent-seeking contests. Most previous studies use a lottery prize rule and linear cost, and find both overbidding relative to the Nash equilibrium prediction and significant variation of...

This article examines behavior in the two-player, constant-sum Colonel Blotto game with asymmetric resources in which players maximize the expected number of battlefields won. The experimental results support the main qualitative predictions of the theory. In the auction treatment, where winning...

[E. Maskin, \emph{Rev. Econom. Stud.} \textbf{66} (1999) 23-38] is a seminal paper in the field of mechanism design and implementation theory. [J. Moore and R. Repullo, \emph{Econometrica} \textbf{58} (1990) 1083-1099] and [B. Dutta and A. Sen, \emph{Rev. Econom. Stud.} \textbf{58} (1991)...

Quantum strategies have been successfully applied in game theory for years. However, as a reverse problem of game theory, the theory of mechanism design is ignored by physicists. In this paper, we generalize the classical theory of mechanism design to a quantum domain and obtain two results: 1)...

In the field of mechanism design, the revelation principle has been known for decades. Myerson, Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green gave formal proofs of the revelation principle. However, in this paper, we argue that there are serious bugs hidden in their proofs.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a simple model that captures the essential contradiction between individual rationality and global rationality. Although the single-shot Prisoner's Dilemma is usually viewed simple, in this paper we will propose an algorithmic model and a non-binding scheme to help...

Using a two-player Tullock-type contest we show that intuitively and structurally different contests can be strategically equivalent. Strategically equivalent contests generate the same best response functions and, as a result, the same equilibrium efforts. However, strategically equivalent...

We find the sufficient conditions for the existence of multiple equilibria in Tullock-type contests, and show that asymmetric equilibria arise even under symmetric prize and cost structures. We then present existing contests where multiple equilibria exist under reasonably weak conditions.