We consider imperfectly discriminating, common-value, all-pay auctions (or contests) where some players know the value of the prize, others do not. We show that if the prize is always of positive value, then all players are active in equilibrium. If the prize is of value zero with positive...

We consider a variant of the Tullock rent-seeking contest. Under symmetric information we determine equilibrium strategies and prove their uniqueness. Then, we assume contestants to be privately informed about their costs of effort. We prove existence of a pure-strategy equilibrium and provide a...

Perfectly discriminating contests (or all pay auction) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their ability to fight in the contest. This paper studies a two...

We investigate a version of the classic Colonel Blotto game in which individual battles may have different values. Two players allocate a fixed budget across battlefields and each battlefield is won by the player who allocates the most to that battlefield. The winner of the game is the player...

In economic environments, decision-makers can strategically delay irreversible investments to learn from the actions of others. This creates free-riding incentives and can lead to socially suboptimal outcomes. We experimentally examine if and how communication mitigates this free-riding problem...

We report the results of a series of experimental Bertrand duopolies where firms have convex costs. Theoretically, these duopolies are characterized by a multiplicity of Nash equilibria. Using a 2x2 design, we analyze price choices in symmetric and asymmetric markets under two information...

We study the efficiency of standard auctions with interdependent values in which one of two bidders is perfectly informed of his value while the other is partially informed. The second-price auction, as well as English auction, has a unique ex-post equilibrium that yields efficient allocation....

We experimentally test the truth-telling mechanism proposed by Montero (2008) for eliciting firms' abatement costs. We compare this mechanism with two well-known alternative allocation mechanisms, free and costly allocation of permits at the Pigouvian price. Controlling for the number of firms...

We experimentally test the truth-telling mechanism proposed by Montero (2008) for eliciting firms' abatement costs. We compare this mechanism with two well-known alternative allocation mechanisms, grandfathering and pure auctioning. We conducted 27 treatments with a total of 623 participants,...