Suchergebnisse

We study an all-pay contest with multiple identical prizes (lifeboat seats). Prizes are partitioned into subsets of prizes (lifeboats). Players play a two-stage game. First, each player chooses an element of the partition (a lifeboat). Then each player competes for a prize in the subset chosen (a seat). We characterize and compare the subgame perfect equilibria in which all players employ pure strategies or all players play identical mixed strategies in the first stage. We find that the partitioning of prizes allows for coordination failure among players when they play nondegenerate mixed strategies and this can shelter rents and reduce rent dissipation compared to some of the less efficient pure strategy equilibria. (author's abstract)

"This paper utilizes a simple model of redistributive politics with voter abstention to analyze the impact of nonpartisan 'get-out-the-vote' efforts on policy outcomes. Although such efforts are often promoted on the grounds that they provide the social benefit of increasing participation in the electoral process, we find that they have a meaningful impact on policy outcomes and are an important political influence activity for nonprofit advocacy organizations. In equilibrium, nonpartisan gotv efforts are more likely to arise in those segments of the electorate that are sufficiently small and disenfranchised (as measured by the ex ante voter abstention rate). Among those segments in which such efforts arise, the resulting gains are increasing in the level of disenfranchisement of the voters in the segment and decreasing in the segment's size." (author's abstract)

"This paper examines a multi-player and multi-front Colonel Blotto game in which one player, A, simultaneously competes in two disjoint Colonel Blotto games, against two separate opponents, 1 and 2. Prior to competing in the games, players 1 and 2 have the opportunity to form an alliance to share their endowments of a one-dimensional resource (e.g., troops, military hardware, money). This paper examines 'non-cooperative' alliances in which only individually rational ex ante transfers of the resource are allowed. Once these transfers take place, each alliance member maximizes his payoff in his respective Colonel Blotto game, given his resource constraint and player A's allocation of its endowment across the two games. No ex post transfers are enforceable. Remarkably, there are several ranges of parameters in which endogenous unilateral transfers take place within the alliance. That is, one player gives away resources to his ally, who happily accepts the gift. Unilateral transfers arise because they lead to a strategic shift the common opponent's force allocation away from the set of battlefields of the player making the transfer, towards the set of battlefields of the player receiving the transfer. Our result demonstrates that there exist unilateral transfers for which the combination of direct and strategic effects benefits both allies. This stands in stark contrast to the previous literature on alliances (see Sandler and Hartley, 2001), which relies on the assumption of pure or impure public goods." (author's abstract)

"Countries compete for new FDI investment, whereas stocks of FDI generate agglomeration benefits and are potentially subject to extortionary taxation. We study the interaction between these aspects in a simple vintage capital framework with discrete time and infinite horizon, focussing on Markov perfect equilibrium in stationary strategies. We show that the tax revenue in the equilibrium is substantial, and higher on 'old' FDI than on 'new' FDI, even though countries are not allowed to use discriminatory taxation. Moreover, the agglomeration advantage is valuable, but is exploited in the short run and can be unstable over time." (author's abstract)

"The formation of an alliance in conflict situations is known to suffer from a collective action problem and from the potential of internal conflict. We show that budget constraints of an intermediate size can overcome this strong disadvantage and explain the formation of alliances." (author's abstract)

"This paper examines the effect of inefficient redistribution in Myerson's (1993) model of redistributive politics. Regardless of the absolute levels of the efficiency of political parties' transfers to different voter segments, parties have incentive to (stochastically) shift resources away from voter segments with large relative efficiency gaps between the two parties' transfers towards voter segments with smaller relative efficiency gaps. Because of this dependence on relative, and not absolute, levels of efficiency, the parties/ optimal strategies may lead to large discrepancies between the sum of the budgetary transfers and the sum of the effective transfers. At the extreme, in the spirit of Magee, Brock, and Young (1989), we obtain 'black hole' inefficiency. When the model is extended to allow for loyal voter segments and loyalty to a party is positively related to the efficiency of that party's transfers to the segment, the incentives leading to black hole inefficiency become even stronger." (author's abstract)

"This paper studies electoral competition in a model of redistributive politics with deterministic voting and heterogeneous voter loyalties to political parties. We construct a natural measure of 'party strength' based on the sizes and intensities of a party's loyal voter segments and demonstrate how party behavior varies with the two parties' strengths. In equilibrium, parties target or 'poach' a strict subset of the opposition party's loyal voters: offering those voters a high expected transfer, while 'freezing out' the remainder with a zero transfer. The size of the subset of opposition voters frozen out and, consequently, the level of inequality in utilities generated by a party's equilibrium redistribution schedule is increasing in the opposition party's strength. We also construct a measure of 'political polarization' that is increasing in the sum and symmetry of the parties' strengths, and find that the expected ex-post inequality in utilities of the implemented policy is increasing in political polarization." (author's abstract)

"Die Autoren beschreiben das eindeutige Markoff-perfekte Gleichgewicht in einem mehrstufigen Konflikt ohne exogene Unsicherheit ('noise'), bei dem die Spieler versuchen, in einer Serie von aufeinander folgenden kleineren Gefechten einen Konflikt zu gewinnen. Jedes Gefecht ist eine 'all-pay auction', bei der derjenige Spieler gewinnt, der die meisten Ressourcen eingesetzt hat. Im Gleichgewicht konzentriert sich der Mitteleinsatz auf höchstens zwei benachbarte Zustände, die wir als spielentscheidende Zustände ('tipping states') bezeichnen. Die Lage dieser Zustände hängt von der relativen Stärke der Spieler, der Zahl der verbleibenden Spielstufen bis zum Gesamtsieg und dem Diskontierungsfaktor ab. An diesen kritischen Zuständen ist der Konfliktausgang zufällig aufgrund der stochastischen Verteilung der im Gleichgewicht gewählten Mengen von Konfliktressourcen. Sowohl die relative Stärke als auch die Nähe zur finalen Konfliktstufe erhöhen die Wahrscheinlichkeit, das einzelne Gefecht zu gewinnen. Geringe Kosten des Wartens verringern den Einfluss der Entfernung zum Gesamtsieg auf den Ausgang der einzelnen Gefechte. Die Anwendungsgebiete sind zahlreich und reichen von der Politik über die Wirtschaft und den Sport bis zur Biologie. Dort findet das Gleichgewichtsergebnis empirisch Unterstützung: Viele Arten haben eigene Mechanismen entwickelt, z.B. Hierarchien oder andere Organisationsstrukturen, bei denen die Allokation der Siegerprämie in sich möglicherweise wiederholenden Konflikten erfolgt. Die Ergebnisse liefern hierzu eine Erklärung. Im Vergleich mit einem einstufigen Konflikt können solche Strukturen den Ressourceneinsatz der Spieler reduzieren." (Autorenreferat)