Political Economy Commons^™

Essays On The All-Pay Auction, Henk Schouten

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Three all-pay auction models are examined. The first is a symmetric two-player binary-signal all-pay auction with correlated signals and interdependent valuations. The first chapter provides a complete characterization of each form of equilibrium and gives conditions for their existence. The main finding is that there generically exists a unique equilibrium. The unique equilibrium can only be one of four forms of equilibria. I apply my all-pay auction model to elections, where a candidate that receives good news from the polls behaves in a rationally overconfident manner and reduces her equilibrium effort. Consequently, the other candidate can win the election in …