Ein grundlegendes Ergebnis der Auktionstheorie besagt, dass der Preisverlauf einer sequentiellen Auktion unter üblichen IPV-Annahmen konstant ist und unter Zugrundelegung affiliierter Bewertungen sogar ansteigt. Empirische Arbeiten beobachteten jedoch in der Praxis auf unterschiedlichsten...

We study the profitability and welfare effects of merger in a strategic trade policy environment. Merger changes the strategic trade policy equilibrium. We show that merger can be profitable and welfare enhancing here, even though it is not profitable in a laissez-faire economy. A key element is...

This paper presents a unified framework for characterizing symmetric equilibrium in simultaneous move, two-player, rank-order contests with complete information, in which each player’s strategy generates direct or indirect affine “spillover” effects that depend on the rank-order of her...

We consider a two-player contest for a prize of common but uncertain value. We show that less resources are spent in equilibrium if one party is privately informed about the value of a prize than if either both agents are informed or neither agent is informed. Furthermore, the uninformed agent...

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...

Competition in some product markets takes the form of a contest. If some firms cooperate in such markets, they must decide how to allocate effort on each of their products and whether to reduce the number of their products in the competition. We show how this decision depends on the convexity...

The paper studies a repeated contest when contestants are uncertain about their true abilities. A favourable belief about one’s own ability (confidence) stimulates effort and increases the likelihood of success. Success, in turn, reinforces favourable beliefs. We consider a specific example in...

A firm facing employment protection will defend its market position more fiercely than a firm operating without such restrictions. However, ex ante it will be more reluctant to expand its market position. For the benchmark case of contest competition, the defensive effect dominates. A firm...

In this note we consider the preferences of a profit maximizing firm for international ownership in a world in which firms compete in an international Cournot oligopoly, and in which countries use strategic trade policy. We find that firms prefer national ownership and show that full...

From auction theory we know that multi-unit, pay-as-bid auctions in general lead to bid shading and thus to an inefficient allocation. This result is supported by historical data from the German market for balancing power, which show that bidders bid well above their actual costs. In contrast to...