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Essays On Asymmetric Contests And Urbanization In India, Pulkit K. Nigam

Theses and Dissertations

I study asymmetric all-pay auction contests where the prize has the same value for all players, but players might have different cost functions. I allow for the cost functions to be discontinuous as long as they are right-continuous. In that setting, I determine sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of the conventional mixed-strategy equilibrium. Employing this framework, I discuss the implementation of a soft cap on bids and the effect that has on the conventional mixed-strategy equilibrium and players’ bidding behavior, especially with respect to a situation where there is no cap on bids. I also determine the total cost …