We model a simple patent race between symmetric firms, where all firms are involved in a wage bargaining process with the same trade union. We analyze how R&D expenditures and the outcome of the patent race are affected by a trade union’s wage policy. As a main result, we are able to show that...

Our experimental design mimics a traditional evolutionary game framework where players are matched pairwise to play a symmetric 3x3 bimatrix game which has two Nash equilibria. One equilibrium is an evolutionary stable state, or ESS; the other is an equilibrium in dominated strategies. Our...

Whereas early threats are chosen before bargaining, late threats are determined after bargaining ended in conflict. Instead of exogenously imposing the timing of threats, these are derived endogenously as in indirect evolution or endogenous timing. Based on a duopoly market, we first derive the...

Facing a stochastic market wage, which is independent of their own hiring policy, employers offer contracts specifying ï¬xed wage, revenue share and employment duration. In ongoing employment relations it depends on the treatment whether ï¬xed wages can be only increased or also decreased....

On a symmetric homogeneous oligopoly market with stochastic demand, firms can either hire employees or buy their labor input on a competitive labor market. Whereas the wage of hired labor does not depend on the realization of stochastic demand, the price of 'bought' labor reacts positively to...

This paper deals with the evolution of conventions in a finite population of boundedly rational players. We apply methods from the theory of automata networks to analyze the effects of different interaction structures. It is shown that the size of the reference group for each player has an...