Abstract : We consider delegation in a rent-seeking contest with two players, where delegates have more instruments at their disposal than the main players. We endogenize both the decision to hire a delegate and the contingent fee offered to the delegates. We characterize the situations when...

The paper considers a (static) portfolio system that satisfies adding-up contraints and the gross substitution theorem. The paper shows the relationship of the two conditions to the weak dominant diagonal property of the matrix of interest rate elasticities. This enables to investigate the...

We consider a winner-take-all contest extended with a principal-agent re-lationship. One of the two players, say player 1, offers a contract to an agent to act in the contest as a delegate on his behalf. The wage offered to the agent is deliberately chosen by player 1. We characterize the Nash...

We present a model which combines elements of an auction and a rent-seeking contest. Players compete for a prize. Apart from exerting lobbying efforts, they also have to submit a bid which is payable only if they win the prize. First, we analyze the model if the returns-to-scale parameters of...

It is known that the option of delegation in a rent-seeking contest between two individuals leads to a prisoner's dilemma. In equilibrium no player hires a delegate, while it is Pareto-efficient if both would hire one. This paper shows that this result does not generalize to a contest between...

We argue in this paper that a more active market for corporate control may weaken the takeover threat. We show that an increase in the number of potential raiders tends to decrease the probability of a takeover. This in turn weakens managerial incentives. The lower managerial effort level that...

Abstract We analyse the development of world records speed skating from 1893 to 2000 for both men and women. The historical data show that it is likely that the relation between skating speed and distance of the various events is non-linear and converges to a limit value. We pay special...

The well-known Klein-Monti model of bank behavior considers a monopolistic bank. We demonstrate that this model's results on the comparative static effects of a change in the exogenous interbank market interest rate do not necessarily hold in oligopolistic Cournot or Stackelberg generalizations....

We propose to assess the influence of a number of events on the degree of competition in the Dutch electricity wholesale market over the period 2006-2011 through a decomposition method based on the Residual Supply Index. We distinguish regulatory market-integration events, firm-level events and...