A unified approach to comparative statics puzzles in experiments

Many experimental studies implement two versions of one game for which agents’ behavior is fundamentally different even though the Nash prediction is the same. This paper provides a novel explanation of such findings. Starting from the observation that many of the games under consideration satisfy the strategic-complementarity property, I obtain predictions for the direction of adjustment in response to parameter changes which do not require calculation of the equilibrium. I show that these predictions explain the experimental evidence very well. Further, I provide a behavioral justification of the approach, and I explore the relation to alternative explanations based on equilibrium selection theories and the quantal response equilibrium.experimental economics, game theory, Nash equilibrium, embedding method

The relation between competition and innovation – Why is it such a mess?

Using a general two-stage framework, this paper gives sufficient conditions for increasing competition to have negative or positive effects on R&D-investment, respectively. Both possibilities arise in plausible situations, even if one uses relatively narrow definitions of increasing competition. The paper also shows that competition is more likely to increase the investments of leaders than those of laggards. When R&D-spillovers are strong, competition is less likely to increase investments. The paper also identifies conditions under which low initial levels of competition make a positive effects of competition on investment more likely. Extending the basic framework, the paper shows that separation of ownership and control, endogenous entry and cumulative investments make positive effects of competition on investment more likely. Imperfect upstream competition weakens the effects of competition on investment.competition, investment, cost reduction

Entry in liberalized railway markets: The German experience

In Germany, competitive franchising is increasingly being used to procure passenger railway services that were previously provided by a state monopolist. This paper analyzes the 77 tenders that have taken place since the railway reform in 1994. The tenders differ with respect to the size of the franchise network, the required frequency of service, the duration of the contract and the proximity to other lines that are already run by competitors of DB Regio, a subsidiary of the successor of the former state monopolist. Our analysis shows that larger networks are less likely to be won by the competitors. Also, more recent auctions have been won by competitors more frequently than earlier auctions. Other control variables such as the duration of the contract and the adjacency to other lines run by entrants are insignificant.Competition for the market, liberalization, passenger railways, procurement auctions

Auctions vs negotiations in public procurement: which works better?

Public agencies rely on two key modes to procure goods and services: auctions and direct negotiations. The relative advantages of these two modes are still imperfectly understood. This paper therefore studies public procurement of regional passenger railway services in Germany, where regional agencies can use auctions and negotiations to procure regional passenger rail services. This offers the unique opportunity to assess the two procurement modes within the same institutional and legal framework. We first characterize the decisions of the agency in a simple reduced form framework of negotiations and auctions. This analysis suggests accounting for the endogeneity of the choice of procurement mode by estimating the mode of procurement, quantity and price simultaneously. We then test this framework using information on lines that were auctioned and lines that were directly negotiated with the former monopolist. Results indicate (i) endogeneity of procurement choice can be fully characterized by observed line characteristics; (ii) frequency of service is 16 percent higher on lines that were auctioned compared to lines that were negotiated, and (iii) the procurement price is 25 percent lower on auctioned lines than on those with direct negotiations. Taken together, these results indicate a significant efficiency enhancing effect of auctions.Auctions, negotiations, liberalization, passenger railways, public procurement

On The Role of Access Charges Under Network Competition

We aim to clarify the role of access charges under two-way network competition, employing a reduced-form approach. Retaining the key features of specific network competition models but imposing less structure, we analyze the impact of changes in access charges on linear and non-linear retail prices. We derive su.cient conditions for usage fees to be increasing (and subscriber charges to be decreasing) in access charges. These conditions are shown to be satisfied only under rather restrictive assumptions on the demand for calls, suggesting that implementing collusion by inflating access charges is likely to be nonfeasible.network competition, two-way access, collusion, nonlinear retail prices

All-Pay Auctions with Negative Prize Externalities: Theory and Experimental Evidence

The paper characterizes the mixed-strategy equilibria in all-pay auctions with endogenous prizes that depend positively on own effort and negatively on the effort of competitors. Such auctions arise naturally in the context of investment games, lobbying games, and promotion tournaments. We also provide an experimental analysis of a special case which captures the strategic situation of a two-stage game with investment preceding homogenous Bertrand competition. We obtain overinvestment both relative to the mixed-strategy equilibrium and the social optimum.All-pay auctions, oligopoly, investment, experiment, overbidding

A Product-Market Theory of Industry-Specific Training

We develop a product market theory that explains why firms provide their workers with skills that are sufficiently general to be potentially useful for competitors. We consider a model where firms first decide whether to invest in industry-specific human capital, then make wage offers for each others’ trained employees and finally engage in imperfect product market competition. Equilibria with and without training, and multiple equilibria can emerge. If competition is sufficiently soft and returns to the number of trained workers decrease sufficiently, firms may invest in non-specific training if others do the same, because they would otherwise suffer a competitive disadvantage or need to pay high wages in order to attract trained workers.industry-specific training, human capital, oligopoly, turnover

Innovation and the Emergence of Market Dominance

This paper analyzes a model of oligopolistic competition with ongoing investment. It incorporates the following models as special cases: incremental investment, patent races, learning-by-doing, and network externalities. We investigate circumstances under which a firm with low costs or high quality will extend its initial lead through further cost-reducing or quality-improving investments. In many commonly-studied oligopoly games, such investments are strategic substitutes. We derive a new comparative statics result that applies to games with strategic substitutes, and we use the result to derive conditions under which leading firms invest more than lagging firms. We show that the conditions are satisfied in a variety of commonly-studied oligopoly models. We also highlight plausible countervailing effects from two distinct sources. First, leading firms may find it more costly than others to achieve the same increment to their state. This force is particularly salient inmany models of patentn races, where firms make research investments in an attempt to find a new technology that delivers a given level of cost or quality. Second, countervailing effects may arise in dynamic games with more than two firms are sufficiently patient.oligopoly games, strategic substitutes, innovation, investment, increasing dominance, market concentration

Merger Negotiations and Ex-Post Regret

We consider a setting in which two potential merger partners each possess private information pertaining both to the profitability of the merged entity and to stand-alone profits, and investigate the extent to which this private information makes ex-post regret an unavoidable phenomenon in merger negotiations. To this end, we consider ex-post mechanisms, which use both players’ reports to determine whether or not a merger will take place and what each player will earn in each case. When the outside option of at least one player is known, the efficient merger decision can be implemented by such a mechanism under plausible budget-balance requirements. When neither outside option is known, we show that the potential for regret-free implementation is much more limited, unless the budget balance condition is relaxed to permit money-burning in the case of false reports.Mergers, Mechanism Design, Asymmetric Information, Interdependent Valuations, Efficient Mechanisms