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作者:Hubbard, Thomas N.; Mazzeo, Michael J.
作者单位:Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:Standard models that guide competition policy imply that demand increases should lead to more, not fewer firms. However, Sutton's (1991) model shows that demand increases instead can lead to shakeouts if non-price competition takes the form of fixed investments. We investigate this effect in the 1960s-1980s hotel and motel industry, where quality competition arose through investments in swimming pools. We show that demand increases associated with highway openings led to fewer firms, particula...
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作者:Taneva, Ina
作者单位:University of Edinburgh
摘要:A designer commits to a signal distribution that is informative about a payoff-relevant state. Conditional upon the privately observed signals, agents take actions that affect their payoffs as well as those of the designer. We show how to derive the (designer) optimal information structure in static finite environments. We fully characterize it in a symmetric binary setting for a parameterized game. In this environment, conditionally independent private signals are never strictly optimal.
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作者:Fahn, Matthias; Klein, Nicolas
作者单位:Johannes Kepler University Linz; Johannes Kepler University Linz; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal
摘要:We analyze a relational-contracting problem, in which the principal has private information about the future value of the relationship. In order to reduce bonus payments, the principal is tempted to claim that the value of the future relationship is lower than it actually is. To induce truth-telling, the optimal relational contract may introduce distortions after a bad report. For some levels of the discount factor, output is reduced by more than would be sequentially optimal. This distortion ...
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作者:Fudenberg, Drew; Vespa, Emanuel
作者单位:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
摘要:We study the effect of how types are assigned to participants in a signaling-game experiment. The sender has two actions, In and Out, and two types. In one treatment, types are i.i.d. in every period, and senders gather experience with both types. In the other, types are assigned once-and-for-all, and feedback is type specific. The theory of learning in games predicts that the non-Nash but self-confirming equilibrium where some fraction of types play Out can persist in the fixed-type treatment...
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作者:Bird, Daniel; Frug, Alexander
作者单位:Tel Aviv University; Pompeu Fabra University; Barcelona School of Economics
摘要:We study a principal-agent interaction where investments and rewards arrive stochastically over time and are privately observed by the agent. Investments (costly for the agent, beneficial for the principal) can be concealed by the agent. Rewards (beneficial for the agent, costly for the principal) can be forbidden by the principal. We ask how rewards should be used and which investments incentivized. We identify the unique optimal mechanism and analyze the dynamic investment and compensation p...
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作者:Fahn, Matthias; Hakenes, Hendrik
作者单位:Johannes Kepler University Linz; University of Bonn
摘要:We show that team formation can serve as an implicit commitment device to overcome problems of self-control. If individuals have present-biased preferences, effort that is costly today but rewarded at some later point in time is too low from the perspective of an individual's long-run self If agents interact repeatedly and can monitor each other, a relational contract involving teamwork can help to improve performance. The mutual promise to work harder is credible because the team breaks up af...
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作者:Friebel, Guido; Kosfeld, Michael; Thielmann, Gerd
作者单位:Goethe University Frankfurt
摘要:We conduct experimental games with police applicants in Germany to investigate whether intrinsically motivated agents self-select into this type of public service. Our focus is on trustworthiness and the willingness to enforce norms of cooperation as key dimensions of intrinsic motivation in the police context. We find that police applicants are more trustworthy than non-applicants, i.e., they return higher shares as second-movers in a trust game. Furthermore, they invest more in rewards and p...
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作者:Khalmetski, Kiryl; Sliwka, Dirk
作者单位:University of Cologne
摘要:We study equilibrium reporting behavior in cheating games when agents have a fixed cost of lying and image concerns not to be perceived as a liar. We show that equilibria naturally arise in which agents with low costs of lying randomize among a set of the highest potential reports. Such equilibria induce a distribution of reports in line with observed experimental patterns. We also find that higher image concerns lead to an increase in the range of reported lies, while the effect of the fixed ...