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War of Attrition: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment on Market Exit

Author

Listed:
  • RYan Oprea

    (University Of California, Santa Cruz)

  • Bart J. Wilson

    (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University)

  • Artie Zillante

    (Uinversity of North Carolina, Charlotte)

Abstract

We report an experiment designed to study whether inecient rms are systematically driven from overcrowded markets. We implement a series of 3800 wars of attrition of a type modeled in Fudenberg and Tirole (1986). Exit tends to be ecient and exit times conform reasonably well to point predictions of the model. Moreover, we nd that subjects respond similarly to implementations framed in terms of losses as they do to those framed in terms of gains.

Suggested Citation

  • RYan Oprea & Bart J. Wilson & Artie Zillante, 2008. "War of Attrition: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment on Market Exit," Working Papers 08-02, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chu:wpaper:08-02
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Oliver Kirchkamp & Wladislaw Mill, 2019. "Spite vs. risk: explaining overbidding," CESifo Working Paper Series 7631, CESifo.
    3. van Leeuwen, Boris & Offerman, Theo & van de Ven, Jeroen, 2018. "Fight or Flight : Endogenous Timing in Conflicts," Discussion Paper 2018-052, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    4. Sheremeta, Roman, 2018. "Experimental Research on Contests," MPRA Paper 89327, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Brown, Alexander L. & Van Essen, Matt, 2022. "Breaking-up should not be hard to do! Designing contracts to avoid wars of attrition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    6. Kwiek, Maksymilian & Marreiros, Helia & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2019. "Voting as a war of attrition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 104-121.
    7. Foster, Joshua, 2020. "Loss aversion and sunk cost sensitivity in all-pay auctions for charity: Theory and experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    9. Lian Xue & Stefania Sitzia & Theodore L. Turocy, 2022. "Concord and contention in a dynamic unstructured bargaining experiment with costly conflict," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 22-02, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    10. Kwiek, Maksymilian & Marreiros, Helia & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2016. "An experimental study of voting with costly delay," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 23-26.
    11. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Mill, Wladislaw, 2021. "Spite vs. risk: Explaining overbidding in the second-price all-pay auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 616-635.
    12. Xue, Lian & Sitzia, Stefania & Turocy, Theodore L., 2023. "Concord and contention in a dynamic unstructured bargaining experiment with costly conflict," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    13. Foster Joshua, 2018. "Wars of Attrition with Endogenously Determined Budget Constraints," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-10, July.
    14. Gisèle Umbhauer, 2022. "Market Exit and Minimax Regret," Post-Print hal-04491262, HAL.
    15. Daniel Houser & Jian Song, 2021. "Costly Waiting in Dynamic Contests: Theory and Experiment," Working Papers 1082, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    16. Mill, Wladislaw & Morgan, John, 2022. "Competition between friends and foes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market exit; war of attrition; experimental economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

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