The n-player Tullock contest with complete information is known to admit explicit solutions in special cases, such as (i) homogeneous valuations, (ii) constant returns, and (iii) two contestants. But can that model be solved more generally? In this paper, we show that key characteristics of the...

This paper provides a non-technical discussion of the incomplete contracting approach to the theory of the firm developed by Grossman and Hart (1986). This approach offers an answer to the questions regarding the boundaries of the firm first raised by Coase (1937).

The theory of contracts is one of the most active research areas in economics. While classic contract theory failed to account for institutions such as property rights and authority, the theory of incomplete contracts has overcome these conceptual problems and produced a variety of interesting...

In this paper we discuss "lock in effects" and "hold-up problems" (which occur when relationship-specific investments are sunk).

This paper offers a non-technical discussion of the literature on the theoretical foundations of the incomplete contracting approach.

Szidarovszky and Okuguchi (Games and Economic Behavior, 1997) have provided useful conditions for the existence of a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in rent-seeking games of complete information. In this paper, we generalize their results to contests with incomplete informa tion. Two...

Biconcavity is a simple condition on inverse demand that corresponds to the ordinary concept of concavity after simultaneous parameterized transformations of price and quantity. The notion is employed here in the framework of the homogeneous-good Cournot model with potentially heterogeneous...

Any symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium in a Tullock contest with intermediate values of the decisiveness parameter ("2 R É") has countably infinitely many mass points. All probability weight is concentrated on those mass points, which have the zero bid as their sole point of accumulation....

It is shown that rent-seeking contests with continuous and independent type distributions possess a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium.

This paper studies a large class of imperfectly discriminating contests, referred to as elastic contests, that induce players to either overbid a standing bid or to abstain from bidding altogether. Many common forms of contest are elastic. In any equilibrium of an elastic contest, there is...