The generalized Stackelberg equilibrium of the all-pay auction with complete information

We characterize the equilibrium of the all-pay auction with general convex cost of effort and sequential effort choices. We consider a set of n players who are arbitrarily partitioned into a group of players who choose their efforts ‘early’ and a group of players who choose ‘late’. Only the player with the lowest cost of effort has a positive payoff in any equilibrium. This payoff depends on his own timing vis-a-vis the timing of others. We also show that the choice of timing can be endogenized, in which case the strongest player typically chooses ‘late’, whereas all other players are indifferent with respect to their choice of timing. In the most prominent equilibrium the player with the lowest cost of effort wins the auction at zero aggregate cost. We thank Dan Kovenock and Luis C. Corchón for discussion and helpful comments. The usual caveat applies. Wolfgang Leininger likes to express his gratitude to Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) for its generous hospitality and financial support.     

A sequential model for cracking down on street markets for illicit drugs

This paper develops a sequential decision-making model for assisting law enforcement officials in allocating resources during a crackdown operation on illicit drug markets. The sequential crackdown model (SCM) considers a probabilistic framework, where the probability of incarceration of a dealer and the probability of dealing are modeled as a function of the size of a drug market, crackdown enforcement level, drug dealer's financial hardship, and other market characteristics.The model was developed and tested in consultation with enforcement officials from Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ. We present a detailed, step-by-step implementation scheme for updating parameters on each day of the crackdown. Parameter estimation along with examples of model usage is provided. Through these examples, we illustrate how the SCM could be helpful in understanding the response of illicit drug markets to various enforcement strategies. We further show conditions under which an alternating crackdown policy (referred to as a crackdown-backoff) or a consistent use of maximum possible enforcement would be optimal strategies for managing a drug crackdown operation. Within the context of the model and parameter estimates, we show that a much quicker and less costly collapse could be implemented if the available enforcement resources are increased. Finally, the model provides possible conditions under which a crackdown operation would be unsuccessful in eliminating a drug market.     

A Bayesian approach for more reliable tail risk forecasts

This paper demonstrates that existing quantile regression models used for jointly forecasting Value-at-Risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) are sensitive to initial conditions. Given the importance of these measures in financial systems, this sensitivity is a critical issue. A new Bayesian quantile regression approach is proposed for estimating joint VaR and ES models. By treating the initial values as unknown parameters, sensitivity issues can be dealt with. Furthermore, new additive-type models are developed for the ES component that are more robust to initial conditions. A novel approach using the open-faced sandwich (OFS) method is proposed which improves uncertainty quantification in risk forecasts. Simulation and empirical results highlight the improvements in risk forecasts ensuing from the proposed methods.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

Trees and decisions

Summary. The traditional model of sequential decision making, for instance, in extensive form games, is a tree. Most texts define a tree as a connected directed graph without loops and a distinguished node, called the root. But an abstract graph is not a domain for decision theory. Decision theory perceives of acts as functions from states to consequences. Sequential decisions, accordingly, get conceptualized by mappings from sets of states to sets of consequences. Thus, the question arises whether a natural definition of a tree can be given, where nodes are sets of states. We show that, indeed, trees can be defined as specific collections of sets. Without loss of generality the elements of these sets can be interpreted as representing plays. Therefore, the elements can serve as states and consequences at the same time.Received: 23 January 2003, Revised: 2 November 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D70. Correspondence to: Klaus RitzbergerWe are grateful to Larry Blume, Ariel Rubinstein, Jörgen Weibull, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at the universities of Vienna, Salamanca, and Heidelberg for helpful comments. Financial support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under project P15281 is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Making the next move: When does the newness of experience matter in overseas sequential entries of multinational companies?

Traditional internationalization models suggest multinational companies (MNCs) can exploit their accumulative experience to facilitate their sequential entries. However, experience may depreciate over time. Thus, obtaining benefits from prior experience for MNCs is based on two critical premises, i.e., interpreting and applying experience correctly. We argue that there is a need to study the newness dimension of experiential learning. In doing so, we aim to explore to what extent the newness of experience matters in overseas sequential entries for MNCs. Moreover, we expect that the benefits from recent experience in guiding sequential entries are contingent on the extent of context similarity between the most recent entry location and sequential entry location and the outcome expectancy of focal entry. With a sample of 112 Chinese listed firms and 410 observations during the period of 2000–2012, we find that else being equal, the newness of experience of MNCs is positively associated with sequential entry and such a relationship is positively moderated both by context similarity in institutional environment and the outcome expectancy of the focal entry. We also compare the effects of the newness of different types of experience and find that the newness of the most recent experience has a larger influence on sequential entry than location-specific experience and general experience.     

Non-revelation mechanisms in many-to-one markets

In this study we present a simple mechanism in a many-to-one matching market where multiple costless applications are allowed. The mechanism is based on the principles of eligibility and priority and it implements the set of stable matchings in Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium. We extend the analysis to a symmetric mechanism where colleges and students interchange their roles. This mechanism also implements the set of stable matchings.     

Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context

Product pricing has been one of the central issues in the field of marketing and consumer services for managers and researchers alike. However, pricing of information goods has not been paid much attention in literature. For information goods the marginal costs of production and transportation of information goods (online movies, video games, etc.) is almost zero. Hence, the pricing decisions need to be thought of purely in competitive profit maximizing terms. This paper proposes mechanisms for managers to evaluate and base their pricing decisions on rational frameworks that takes into account various situations when they enter a new market and when they are incumbent in a new market. This paper addresses the research gap of spatially differentiated pricing strategy for information goods that has not been studied in literature so far. We create stylized theoretical models under both, sequential and simultaneous decision-making conditions. We determine the equilibrium price and the equilibrium profit for the two firms for each of the four possible scenarios based on their pricing strategies. Our analysis reveals that the dominance of one pricing strategy over the other depends on product differentiation factor capturing joint effect of the product substitutability and consumer's price sensitivity under sequential decision making and the market size along with consumer's price sensitivity for simultaneous decision making. As an extension, we propose a generalized model demonstrating the uniform and spatially differentiated pricing strategies of the firms under simultaneous and sequential selection for multiple domestic and international markets.     

Simultaneous versus sequential information processing

Subjects update prior information simultaneously versus sequentially. The mean prediction is remarkably close to the correct Bayesian estimate with simultaneous information, but differs significantly conditional on whether good news precedes bad news or vice versa.     

征信体系的作用与效率——基于信息不对称随机有限重复博弈的分析

征信体系的意义可以用重复博弈理论来加以解释.本文建立了一个信息不对称随机有限重复信用博弈模型,证明如果存在征信体系实现的信息共享机制,那么不论借款者的类型是什么,诚实守信是可以作为序列均衡的结果在有限重复博弈的绝大多数时期中出现的.如果不存在信息共享机制,信贷市场有可能消失,即便引入资产抵押,信贷市场仍是不完全的.基于上述序列均衡分析,本文进一步阐释了全面征信、法律保障、市场结构对征信体系效率运行的重要性.就发展中国家而言,成立中性、独立、信息全面的国家信用局和鼓励民营信用公司积极竞争,完善义务征信的法律体系是较为理想和可行的选择