Ko, Chiu Yu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-83). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.7 / Chapter 3 --- Model --- p.10 / Chapter 4 --- Finite Stage Model --- p.15 / Chapter 4.1. --- "Stage with deadline: G(n, z)" --- p.15 / Chapter 4.2 --- "Stage without deadline G(n,∞)" --- p.32 / Chapter 5 --- Infinite Stage Models --- p.40 / Chapter 5.1. --- "Stage with deadline G(∞,z)" --- p.40 / Chapter 5.2 --- "Stage without deadline G(∞,∞）" --- p.40 / Chapter 6 --- Non-convex Example --- p.49 / Chapter 6.1 --- Risk loving players --- p.49 / Chapter 6.2 --- Indomitable players --- p.52 / Chapter 7 --- Application --- p.64 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.67 / Chapter 9 --- Appendix --- p.70 / Chapter 9.1 --- Alternative assumption of recognition of the first proposer --- p.70 / Chapter 9.2 --- "Proof of equilibrium for finitely repeated Rubinstein, bargaining problem" --- p.72 / Chapter 9.3 --- Proof for general risk loving bargainers --- p.76 / Chapter 9.4 --- Definition of security equilibrium --- p.77

This dissertation adds to the current understanding of contests. Contests are a class of games in which players compete for a prize be expending resources. Some portion of the resources expended cannot be recuperated, even in the event of a loss. Each chapter extends standard models to incorporate realistic features such as nonprobabilistic uncertainty, budgets, dynamics, or intermediate outcomes. Chapter 1 introduces ambiguity aversion to the all-pay auction and war of attrition. Increasing ambiguity causes low types to bid lower and high types to bid higher, in the all-pay auction. In the war of attrition, ambiguity can uniformly decrease the bids. A revenue ranking for the all-pay auction, war of attrition, and standard sealed bid auctions is provided. These results are consistent with much of the experimental literature. Chapter 2 continues the discussion of ambiguity aversion. The main result is a characterization of the set of increasing equilibria in games like the all-pay auction and war of attrition. Unlike with subjective expected utility, even when beliefs are independent of type, an increasing equilibrium may not exist. Sufficient conditions are provided for such an equilibrium to exist. Chapter 3 models endogenous budgets in sequential elimination contests. Contestants depend on a strategic group of players to provide resources that will be spent in the contest. We analyze the effect of timing and spending rules on aggregate spending. When budgets are not replenished between stages, spending is higher. When unspent resources are refunded, total spending is higher than when all spending is a sunk costs. Chapter 4 introduces an all-pay auction game with an intermediate outcome between winning and losing. When bids are sufficiently different, the player with the highest bid wins a prize, and the other player receives nothing . When bids are close, the outcome is called a tie, and each player receives an intermediate prize. Ties are common in sports, political competition, and war. Equilibrium is characterized for a set of parameters where the tying region is relatively large.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy (Economics) / Auctions are an ancient economic institution. Since Vickrey (1961), the development of auction theory has lead to an extremely detailed description of the often desirable characteristics of these simple selling procedures, in the process explaining their enduring popularity. Given the pervasiveness of auctions, the question of how a seller should engineer the rules of these mechanisms to maximize her own profits is a central issue in the organization of markets. The seminal paper of Myerson (1981) shows that when facing buyers with Independent Private Values (IPVs) a standard auction with a specifically selected reserve price (or prices) is optimal, that is, maximizes a seller's expected profits among all conceivable selling mechanisms. In this model, it is assumed that the buyers have perfect information as to the existence of gains from trade. We shall argue that the consequences of this assumption for the design of the optimal auction are not well understood, which motivates our analysis. The three essays of this thesis relax the `known seller valuation' assumption by examining the optimal auction program when the seller (and principal) holds private information representing her reservation value for the good. In the first essay we provide an original technique for comparing ex ante expected profits across mechanisms for a seller facing N>1 potential buyers when all traders hold private information. Our technique addresses mechanisms that cannot be ranked point-by-point through their allocation rules using the Revenue Equivalence Theorem. We find conditions such that the seller's expected profits increase in the slope of each buyer's allocation probability function. This provides new intuition for the fact that a principal does not benefit from holding private information under risk neutrality. Monopoly pricing induces steep probability functions so the seller/principal benefits from announcing a fixed price, and implicitly her private information. An application is presented for the well known k double auction of the bilateral trade literature. In the second and third essays of this thesis, we extend the above framework to allow for informational externalities. Specifically, we allow for the situation in which the seller's private information represents a common value component in buyers' valuations. Thus the seller's private information (say regarding the quality of the good) is of interest to bidders independently of any strategic effects. In recent work Cai, Riley and Ye (2007) have demonstrated that a seller who holds private information about the quality of a good faces an extra consideration in designing an auction; the reserve price signals information to bidders. In a separating equilibrium signalling is costly in the sense that reserves are higher than would be optimal under complete information. We examine the returns to the seller in an English auction from using different types of secret reserve regimes. We find that immediate disclosure of a reserve is preferable to announcement after the auction in the form of a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the winning bidder. Sale occurs less often during the auction for a given reserve price strategy under secret reserve regimes, which increases the incentive for the seller to report more favourable information though the reserve price offer. Separating equilibria involving later announcement therefore generate even lower expected profits to the seller (signalling is more costly) than under immediate disclosure. In the third essay we compare the benchmark signalling equilibrium of immediate disclosure to a screening regime which we call the Right of Refusal. In this extreme form of a secret reserve the seller never announces the reserve price, she simply accepts or rejects the auction price. We find that the Right of Refusal dominates immediate disclosure if the seller's valuation is a sufficient statistic for the private information of interest. Thus a seller with market-relevant private preference information can benefit from not exercising monopoly price setting power. The result also provides conditions under which a competitive screening equilibrium is more efficient than a signalling mechanism. Broadly speaking, screening is better when the common value aspect in the preferences of the informed and uninformed parties are `aligned', and potential gains from trade to the uninformed party are significant. We believe this conclusion to be of particular interest to the design of privatization schemes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-74).

Opportunistic wireless channel access by non-licensed users has emerged as a promising solution for addressing the bandwidth scarcity challenge. In this thesis, we first design both a deterministic heuristic auction and a randomized auction with a provable performance bound with the guarantee of truthfulness, for networked secondary users. We then turn our attention to mobility support for the secondary users. We introduce two-dimensional bids that reflect a secondary user's willingness to pay for exclusive and nonexclusive channel usage, for the single-channel and multiple-channel scenarios, under which we prove their performances under desired equilibria, respectively. We also devise core-selecting auctions in a combinatorial setting, where secondary users can submit flexible preferences on channels. These auctions can resolve VCG's vulnerability to collusion and shill bidding, and improves seller revenue.

Opportunistic wireless channel access by non-licensed users has emerged as a promising solution for addressing the bandwidth scarcity challenge. In this thesis, we first design both a deterministic heuristic auction and a randomized auction with a provable performance bound with the guarantee of truthfulness, for networked secondary users. We then turn our attention to mobility support for the secondary users. We introduce two-dimensional bids that reflect a secondary user's willingness to pay for exclusive and nonexclusive channel usage, for the single-channel and multiple-channel scenarios, under which we prove their performances under desired equilibria, respectively. We also devise core-selecting auctions in a combinatorial setting, where secondary users can submit flexible preferences on channels. These auctions can resolve VCG's vulnerability to collusion and shill bidding, and improves seller revenue.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-99).

Thesis (M.S. in Information Operations)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Jansen, Erik. Second Reader: Greenshields, Brian. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Evaluation, Inflation, Officer performance report, Officer evaluation system, OPR, OER, Open system, Congruence in organizations, Organizational change, Military reward systems. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-89). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-198). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.