We consider a two-player all-pay auction with symmetric independent private values that are uniformly distributed. The designer chooses the size of a head start that is given to one of the players. The designer’s objective is to maximize a convex combination of the expected highest effort and...

We investigate the efficiency of Coasean bargaining when restrictions are placed on the set of feasible bargaining outcomes. When property rights are costly to (defend) appropriate, we find that bargaining restrictions may be Pareto superior to unconstrained voluntary exchange. Under cost...

We consider a standard two-player all-pay auction with private values, where the valuation for the object is private information to each bidder. The crucial feature is that one bidder is favored by the allocation rule in the sense that he need not bid as much as the other bidder to win the...