A random variable is difference-form decomposable (DFD) if it may be written as the difference of two i.i.d. random terms. We show that densities of such variables exhibit a remarkable degree of structure. Specifically, a DFD density can be neither approximately uniform, nor quasiconvex, nor...

The Riemann Hypothesis (RH) is one of the major unsolved problems in pure mathematics. In this note, a parameterized family of non-cooperative games is constructed with the property that, if RH holds true, then any game in this family admits a unique Nash equilibrium. We argue that this result...

Over the course of the past two decades, it has become a common experience for consumers authorizing an international transaction via credit card to be invited to choose the currency in which they wish the transaction to be executed. While this choice, made feasible by a technology known as...

This paper studies the incentives for interim voluntary disclosure of verifiable information in probabilistic all-pay contests with two-sided incomplete information. Private information may concern marginal cost, valuations, and ability. Our main result says that, if the contest is uniformly...

As pointed out by Sion and Wolfe (1957), a non-cooperative game on the unit square need not admit a Nash equilibrium, neither in pure nor in randomized strategies. In this paper, we consider finite approximations of the Sion-Wolfe game. For all parameter constellations relevant for the limit...

A random variable is difference-form decomposable (DFD) if it may be written as the difference of two i.i.d. random terms. We show that densities of such variables exhibit a remarkable degree of structure. Specifically, a DFD density can be neither approximately uniform, nor quasiconvex, nor...

Colonel Blotto games with discrete strategy spaces effectively illustrate the intricate nature of multidimensional strategic reasoning. This paper studies the equilibrium set of such games where, in line with prior experimental work, the tie-breaking rule is allowed to be flexible. We begin by...

The …xed rate tender is one of the main operational formats usedby central banks in the implementation of their monetary policies. Whileacademic research has largely dismissed the procedure for its tendency to en-courage overbidding, central banks such as the ECB and the Bank of Englandhave...

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure problem that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing.

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...