The same contestants often meet repeatedly in contests. Behavior in a contest potentially provides information with regard to one's type and can therefore influence the behavior of the opponents in later contests. This paper shows that if effort is observable, this can induce a ratchet effect in...

This note reconsiders communication between an informed expert and an uninformed decision maker with a strategic mediator in a discrete Crawford and Sobel (1982) setting. We show that a strategic mediator may improve communication even when he is biased into the same direction as the expert. The...

This paper studies the institutional design of newspaper and periodical wholesale. Motivated by recent developments in Germany, we compare the efficiency properties of two alternative regimes for determining the wholesale margins: collective bargaining (as practised in Germany for the last...

This paper studies sabotage in a dynamic tournament. Three players compete in two rounds. In the final round, a player who is leading in the race, but not yet beyond the reach of his competitors, gets sabotaged more heavily. As a consequence, if players are at the same position initially, they...

Lobbyists choose what to lobby for. If they can precommit to certain policy proposals, their choice will have an influence on the behavior of opposing lobbyists. Hence lobbyists have an incentive to moderate their policy proposals in order to reduce the intensity of the lobbying contest. This...

In an interesting recent paper, Dari-Mattiacci and Parisi (2005) extended Tullock.s (1980) rent-seeking game with an entry decision. The mixed strategies identified by Dari-Mattiacci and Parisi for the case of increasing returns in the contest success function (r 2) do not constitute an...

This paper completely characterizes the set of Nash equilibria of the Vickrey auction for multiple identical units when buyers have non-increasing marginal valuations and there at least three potential buyers. There are two types of equilibria: In the first class of equilibria there are positive...

In many situations there is a potential for conflict both within and between groups. Examples include wars and civil wars and distributional conflict in multitiered organizations like federal states or big companies. This paper models such situations with a logistic technology of conflict. If...

This paper studies sabotage in tournaments with at least three contestants, where the contestants know each other well. Every contestant has an incentive to direct sabotage specifically against his most dangerous rival. In equilibrium, contestants who choose a higher productive effort are...

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...