Multiple prizes are usually awarded in contests (e.g., internal promotions, school admissions, sports, etc.) and players exert effort to increase their chances for winning a higher prize. A multi-prize contest model must provide each player's probabilities of winning each prize as functions of...

In this paper, we identify a set of axioms that is necessary and sufficient for axiomatizing the reverse nested lottery contest proposed by Fu, Lu and Wang (2014), which is the "mirror image" of the conventional nested lottery contest of Clark and Riis (1996). This paper thus provides an...

This note extends the simultaneous-move endogenous technology choice model of Mills and Smith (1996) in two directions. First, expanding consideration to when the technology set is sufficiently convex, we find that the likelihood for asymmetric equilibrium in technology choice does not expand...

We study advance selling in a model with a capacity constraint for the seller and in the presence of both consumer heterogeneity and demand uncertainty. Buyers face different levels of uncertainty about their valuations in the advance selling period: one group (called informed buyers) now their...

We model a game to show that the taxation level in an autocracy reflects the state¡¯s coercive power relative to people¡¯s capacity for violence. The model also specifies the mechanisms through which various factors affect relative state power. The model predicts that taxation level...

The mainstream view that decollectivization significantly contributed to China's agricultural growth has recently been challenged by revisionists, who emphasize the positive effects of the socialist legacy, such as irrigation and mechanization. This study contributes to this debate by explicitly...

The size of nations matters, but the literature on the subject is long on theory and short on direct econometric testing. Using a unique time series data set spanning the past two millennia, we study the process of unification and division in historical China. The empirical results are...

Multiple prizes are usually awarded in contests (e.g., internal promotions, school admissions, sports, etc), and players exert effort to increase their chances for winning a higher prize. A multi-prize contest model must provide each player's probabilities of winning each prize as functions of...

This paper proposes a multi-prize "reverse" nested lottery contest model, which can be viewed as the "mirror image" of the conventional nested lottery contest of Clark and Riis (1996a). The reverse-lottery contest model determines winners by selecting losers based on contestants' one-shot effort...

China provides an interesting case study of civil conflict because of her long history and rich records. Using a unique dynastic panel dataset for north China during 25-1911 CE, this study finds that severe famines and dynastic age were positively correlated with peasant uprisings, whereas...