This paper addresses the selection problem in promotion tournaments. I consider a situation with heterogeneous employees and ask whether an employer might be interested in repeating a promotion tournament. On the one hand, this yields a reduction in uncertainty over the employees` abilities. On...

Individuals faced by a tournament can oftentimes not only choose their effort level, but also the risk level of their strategy. There are some theoretical contributions on risk taking in tournaments, which mainly point out disadvantages with respect to exerted effort. Empirical evidence is rare....

The benefits and costs of different forms of job design have been analyzed in the literature yet. The focus has thereby mostly been on job designs under formal contracts between the parties. However, in the real world relational contracts - informal agreements sustained by the value of future...

In this paper, we consider the market for video games, where some firms are active in both, the market for video games hardware and software. It is puzzling that hardware can be easily made compatible with duplicated (i.e. pirated) software. We ask, whether there exist strategic reasons...

In this paper, the market for video games is considered, where some firms produce both, hardware and software. It is analyzed, whether these firms are interested in strategically enabling software piracy. It will be shown that this is indeed the case, if firms differ substantially in hardware...

We consider antitrust enforcement within the adversarial model used by the United States. We show that, under the adversarial system, the Antitrust Authority may try to prohibit mergers also in those cases in which litigation is ine? cient. Even if market concentration and technological...

We consider a double-sided moral hazard problem where each party can renege on the signed contract since there does not exist any verifi- able performance signal. It is shown that ex-post litigation can restore incentives of the agent. Moreover, when the litigation can be settled by the parties...

In this paper, we analyze a principal's optimal feedback policy in tournaments. We close a gap in the literature by assuming the principal to be unable to commit to a certain policy at the beginning of the tournament. Our analysis shows that in equilibrium the principal reveals intermediate...

We develop a general framework to study contests, containing the well-known models of Tullock (1980) and Lazear and Rosen (1981) as special cases. The contest outcome depends on players' effort and skill, the latter being subject to symmetric uncertainty. The model is tractable, because a...

We develop a general framework for studying contests, including the well-known models of Tullock (1980) and Lazear & Rosen (1981) as special cases. The contest outcome depends on players' efforts and skills, the latter being subject to symmetric uncertainty. The model is tractable, because a...