Essays in Applied Microeconomic Theory

Abstract

This thesis comprises four essays that belong to different strands of the theoretical economic literature. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 study competitions among heterogeneous agents. Chapter 1 investigates the effects of head starts in innovation contests in which firms invest over time to find innovations. Chapter 2 studies how firms and managers pair up with each other when firms play an imperfect competition in the same goods market. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 are on optimal disclosure policies in contests. Chapter 3 models a contest as an all-pay auction and studies whether a contest organizer should disclose the actual number of participating bidders if each bidder's participation is random. Chapter 4 considers whether an innovation contest organizer, upon receiving a submission of an innovation, should reveal the information of the submitted innovation in time.