We consider implementation issues regarding two mechanisms that have been used to increase voter turnout in elections: fines and lotteries. We focus on the amount of the fine or lottery prize needed to achieve full participation. We then propose a combined, self-financing mechanism by which the...

We study a 2-player Blotto game where the n items have asymmetric values. The winner of each item is determined stochastically using a lottery mechanism. We analyze two payoff objectives: (i) players maximize their total expected payoffs and (ii) players maximize their probability of winning a...

We study two provisional fixed-prize mechanisms for funding public goods: an all-pay auction and a lottery. In our setting, the public good is provided only if the participants' contributions are greater than the fixed-prize value; otherwise contributions are refunded. We prove that in this...

We study Tullock's (1980) n-player contest when each player has an independent probability 0 p 2 individual equilibrium spending as a function of p is single-peaked and satisfies a single-crossing property for any two different numbers of potential players. However, total equilibrium spending...

We consider a Blotto Game with Incomplete Information. A pure-strategy symmetric monotonic Bayesian equilibrium is found and its properties are discussed. Key words: Blotto Game, Imperfect Information. Journal of Economic Literature Classification: C72, D72.

We consider Tullock’s contests with reimbursements. It turns out that the winner-reimbursed contest maximizes the net total spending while the loser-reimbursed contest minimizes the net total spending. We investigate properties of contests with reimbursements and compare them with the classic...

In this paper, we consider K finite populations of boundedly rational agents whose preferences and information differ. Each period agents are randomly paired to play some coordination games. We show that several ``special`` (fixed) agents lead the coordination. In a mistake-free environment, all...

Lottery and raffle mechanisms have a long history as economic institutions for raising funds. In a series of laboratory experiments we find that total spending in raffles is much higher than Nash equilibrium predicts. Moreover, this overspending is persistent as the number of participants in the...