According to the Lisbon Strategy innovation is considered to be a fundamental element for socio-economic growth in the EU. In particular, since it is estimated to count for about 16-18% of the European GDP, public procurement can be a driving force for this. To support this role in 2007 the EC...

In the stage game Prisoner's Dilemna one line of research which is pursued to justify the cooperative outcome is based upton some idea of correlation. This paper aims at testing whether correlation could support a cooperative behavior in the long run, by embedding the infinitely repeataed game...

This paper analyzes the impact of the reserve price on participation and the degree of competition in competitive tenderingfor public contracts. Our approach aims at reconciling the most recent developments in auction theory with the more practicalissues arising in centralized public...

The paper introduces Knightian uncertainty, formalized by non-additive probabilities, within a simple agency model. The framework appears to be suitable to deal with issues like delegation in innovative firms. The paper stresses that, with Knightian uncertainty, if the principal is pessimistic...

A main issue in auction and contest design is how to attract the appropriate pool of potential bidders to enter and compete aggressively. In all-pay auctions with complete information (Baye at al, 1993 AER) formulated the so called “Exclusion Principle” showing that when the auctioneer...