This paper examines multi-battle contests whose extensive form can be represented in terms of a finite state machine. We start by showing that any contest that satisfies our assumptions decomposes into two phases, a principal phase (in which states cannot be revisited) and a concluding...

A multi-stage model on the course of war is presented: Individual battles are modeled as private value all-pay auctions with asymmetric combatants of two opposing teams. These auctions are placed within a multi-stage framework with a tug-of-war structure. Such framing provides a microfounded...

In the literature the outcome of contests is either interpreted as win probabilities or as shares of the prize. With this in mind, we examine two approaches to contest success functions. In the first we analyze the implications of contestants' incomplete information concerning the 'type' of the...

To analyze players' strategic alliance behavior, we introduce a new noncooperative coalitional bargaining model, in which each player can buy out other players with upfront transfers. We uncover the role of an essential player in a transferable utility game, or a veto player in a simple game, in...

We introduce a noncooperative multilateral bargaining model for a network-restricted environment, in which players can communicate only with their neighbors. Each player strategically chooses the bargaining partners among the neighbors to buy out their communication links with upfront transfers....