Experimental Contests SS 2008

• 7. May 2008, 9:00-12:00, 8. May, 9:00-17:00, 9. May, 12:00-16:00, GK Seminar Room 214, Helmholtzweg 4 (second floor, right)
• This course will be given in English.
• Credits: 3
• Audience: The lecture is primarily targeted at graduate students. Advanced students from the Hauptstudium are welcome.
• Game theory and some basic knowledge of probabilities may help. The target audience are primarily students from the Graduate School, in particular from RTG 1411 and IMPRS.
• Motivation:
  This lecture is an attempt to combine two main topics of the RTG 1411, innovation and experiments. Theoretically, innovation can be seen as a contest. These contests come in different forms. Some are called first-price all-pay auctions, come rent-seeking contests, some are wars of attrition. Since the end of the eighties, experimentalists have started to analyse contests and related situations with the help of experiments.

  At the beginning of the course, I will start with a brief introduction into theoretical solution concepts. Then participants will discuss critically the following papers:

  1. Millner, E. L., and M. D. Pratt, 1989, An experimental investigation of efficient rent-seeking, Public Choice, 62, 139--151.
  2. Shogren, J. F., and K. H. Baik, 1991, Reexamining efficient rent-seeking in laboratory markets, Public Choice, 69, 69--79.
  3. Davis, D. D., and R. J. Reilly, 1998, Do Too Many Cooks Always Spoil the Stew? An Experimental Analysis of Rent-Seeking and the Role of a Strategic Buyer, Public Choice, 95(1-2), 89--115.
  4. Potters, J., C. G. de Vries, and F. van Winden, 1998, An Experimental Examination of Rational Rent-Seeking, European Journal of Political Economy, 14(4), 783--800.
  5. Vogt, C., J. Weimann, and C.-L. Yang, 2002, Efficient rent-seeking in experiment, Public Choice, 110, 67--78.
  6. Barut, Y., D. Kovenock, and C. N. Noussair, 2002, A Comparison of Multiple-Unit All-Pay and Winner-Pay Auctions under Incomplete Information, International Economic Review, 43(3), 675--708.
  7. Anderson, L. R., and S. L. Stafford, 2003, An experimental analysis of rent seeking under varying competitive conditions, Public Choice, 115, 199--216.
  8. Schmidt, D., R. Shupp, K. Swope, and J. Cardigan, 2004, Multi-Period Rent-Seeking Contests with Carryover: Theory and Experimental Evidence, Economics of Governance, 5(3), 187--211.
  9. Schmidt, D., R. Shupp, and J. Walker, 2004, Resource Allocation Contests: Experimental Evidence, Working paper, Federal Trade Commission.
  10. Bilodeau, M., J. Childs, and S. Mestelman, 2004, Volunteering a public service: an experimental investigation, Journal of Public Economics, 88, 2839--2855.
  11. Öncüler, A., and R. Croson, 2005, Rent-Seeking for a Risky Rent. A Model and Experimental Investigation, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 17(4), 403--429.
  12. Gneezy, U., and R. Smorodinsky, 2006, All-pay auctions---an experimental study, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 61, 255--275.
  13. Abbink, K., J. Brandts, B. Herrmann, and H. Orzen, 2007, Inter-Group Conflict and Intro-Group Punishment in an Experimental Contest Game, Discussion Paper 2007-15, CeDEx Discussion Paper, University of Nottingham.
  14. Müller, W., and A. Schotter, 2007, Workaholics and Drop Outs in Optimal Organizations, Working Paper Series 2007-07, C.E.S.S.
• Please send feedback and questions to oliver.kirchkamp@uni-jena.de.