Caps on Bidding in All-Pay Auctions: Comments on the Experiments of A. Rapoport and W. Amaldoss.

Abstract

In an article published in this journal, Rapoport and Amaldoss (2000, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 42, 483-521) analyze symmetric and asymmetric investment games similar to two-player all-pay auctions with bid caps. In this note, we correct an error in their characterization of the set of Nash Equilibria of their symmetric investment game. In particular, we find Equilibria that Rapoport and Amaldoss (2000) fail to identify. Taking these Equilibria into account has important implications for the analysis of data from Rapoport and Amaldoss’s experiments.All-Pay Auction ; Mixed strategies ; Discrete strategy space ; Bid caps ; Experiments