This article considers manipulation of collective choice — in such environments, a potential alternative is powerful only to the degree that its introduction can affect the collective decision. Using the Banks set (Banks, 1985), we present and characterize alternatives that can, and those...

In tournaments, one alternative contests another if is a “winner” among only alternatives that beat it. This paper examines the consequences and limitations of the contestation relation by considering a procedure in which alternatives that are contested are iteratively eliminated from...

We consider an extension of Tullock's (1980) N-player contest under which prize valuations may vary across players. We show that the pure-strategy equilibrium of this contest is unique. We also establish the following results: rent dissipation increases, individual winning probabilities...

We investigate an economy in which firms have different risks to go bankrupt. We observe two things: first, workers in firms with higher bankruptcy risk (bad firms) always work less than workers in good firms. Second, the CEOs of bad firms may nonetheless receive larger wages. Copyright...

This paper analyzes an evolutionary version of the Public Good game in which boundedly rational agents can use imitation and best-reply decision rules. Several possibilities for both decision rules to be present in the population are considered. I show that altruistic behavior might survive if...

We consider asymmetric winner-reimbursed contests. It turns out that such contests (Sad-Loser) have multiple internal pure-strategy equilibria (where at least two players are active). We describe all equilibria and discuss their properties. In particular, we find (1) that an active player is...

This paper explains how and why the Matching Auctions work better with Imperfect Financial Markets. We show that an efficient outsider can obtain a “good” project even if the insider has informational advantage.