Huseyin Yildirim

Journal Article Journal of Economic Theory · January 1, 2024 We introduce career concerns into rank-order tournaments and offer a novel explanation for the pervasiveness of multiple prizes. We argue that career-concerned individuals, already facing market pressure to perform, will be reluctant to participate in winn ... Full text Cite

Who fares better in teamwork?

Journal Article RAND Journal of Economics · June 1, 2023 This article establishes a tenuous link between ability and relative well-being in teamwork. It shows that higher-ability or lower-cost members can easily fare worse than their lower-ability counterparts due to free-riding. The extent of free-riding hinges ... Full text Cite

Credit attribution and collaborative work

Journal Article Journal of Economic Theory · July 1, 2021 We examine incentives in research teams where the market, such as the scientific community, attributes credit for success based on its inference of individual efforts. A social planner who could commit to credit ex ante would induce more effort from higher ... Full text Open Access Cite

Biased experts, majority rule, and the optimal composition of committee

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · May 1, 2021 An uninformed principal appoints a committee of experts to vote on a multi-attribute alternative, such as an interdisciplinary project. Each expert evaluates one attribute and is biased toward it (specialty bias). The principal values all attributes equall ... Full text Open Access Cite

Social pressure, transparency, and voting in committees

Journal Article Journal of Economic Theory · November 1, 2019 We examine the consequences of vote transparency in committees whose members fear being blamed by interested observers for casting an unfavorable vote. We show that while individually undesirable, such social pressure can improve the collective decision by ... Full text Open Access Cite

Letter from the editors

Journal Article Review of Economic Design · June 1, 2019 Full text Cite

Strategic ignorance in sequential procurement

Journal Article American Economic Journal: Microeconomics · May 1, 2019 Should a buyer approach sellers of complementary goods informed or uninformed of her private valuations, and if informed, in which sequence? In this paper, we show that an informed buyer would start with the high-value seller to minimize future holdup. Inf ... Full text Cite

A capture theory of committees

Journal Article Public Choice · October 1, 2018 Why do committees exist? The extant literature emphasizes that they pool dispersed information across members. In this paper, we argue that they may also serve to discourage outside influence or capture by raising its cost. As such, committees may contain ... Full text Cite

Information, competition, and the quality of charities

Journal Article Journal of Public Economics · December 1, 2016 Drawing upon the all-pay auction literature, we propose a model of charity competition in which informed giving alone can account for the significant quality heterogeneity across similar charities. Our analysis identifies a negative effect of competition a ... Full text Open Access Cite

'Giving' in to Social Pressure

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · September 2016 Full text Open Access Cite

A Theory of Outsourced Fundraising: Why Dollars Turn into 'Pennies for Charity'

Journal Article Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Working Paper · December 6, 2014 Charities frequently rely on professional solicitors whose commissions exceed half of total donations. To understand this practice, we propose a principal-agent model in which the charity optimally offers a higher commission to a more “efficient” solicitor ... Open Access Cite

Andreoni-Mcguire Algorithm and the Limits of Warm-Glow Giving

Journal Article Journal of Public Economics · January 1, 2014 We provide a full equilibrium characterization of warm-glow giving à la Andreoni (1989, 1990) by extending the Andreoni-McGuire (1993) algorithm. We then generalize and offer an intuitive meaning to the large-economy crowding-out results by Ribar and Wilhe ... Full text Cite

(Un)Informed charitable giving

Journal Article Journal of Public Economics · October 1, 2013 Evidence suggests little informed giving. To understand this behavior, we examine voluntary provision of a discrete public good with independent private values that can be ascertained at a cost. We find that an individual who considers a smaller contributi ... Full text Cite

A Theory of Charitable Fund-Raising with Costly Solicitations

Journal Article American Economic Review · April 2013 We present a theory of charitable fund-raising in which it is costly to solicit donors. We fully characterize the solicitation strategy that maximizes donations net of fund-raising costs. It is optimal for the fund-raiser to target only the "net contributo ... Cite

Payoff uncertainty, bargaining power, and the strategic sequencing of bilateral negotiations

Journal Article RAND Journal of Economics · September 1, 2012 This article investigates the sequencing choice of a buyer who negotiates with the sellers of two complementary objects with uncertain payoffs. The possibility of inefficient trade may generate strict sequencing preference. The buyer begins with the weaker ... Full text Cite

On the role of confidentiality and deadlines in bilateral negotiations

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · July 1, 2012 The preference between public and private negotiations for a buyer who sequentially visits two sellers is examined. It is shown that the buyer (weakly) prefers private negotiations so as to create strategic uncertainty about the trade history. With substit ... Full text Cite

Subjective performance and the value of blind evaluation

Journal Article Review of Economic Studies · April 1, 2011 The incentive and project selection effects of agent anonymity are investigated in a setting where an evaluator observes a subjective signal of project quality. Although the evaluator cannot commit ex ante to an acceptance criterion, she decides up front b ... Full text Cite

Distribution of surplus in sequential bargaining with endogenous recognition

Journal Article Public Choice · January 1, 2010 I examine a sequential bargaining situation in which agents contest the right to propose an allocation. The contest can either take place at a pre-bargaining stage, yielding "persistent recognition" to propose, or recur throughout the bargaining, yielding ... Full text Cite

Public information and electoral bias

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · January 1, 2010 We present a theory of voting that predicts that elections are more likely to be close, and voter turnout is more likely to be high when citizens possess better public information about the composition of the electorate. These findings suggest that providi ... Full text Cite

A unified analysis of rational voting with private values and group-specific costs

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · January 1, 2010 We provide a unified analysis of the canonical rational voting model with privately known political preferences and costs of voting. Focusing on type-symmetric equilibrium, we show that for small electorates, members of the minority group vote with a stric ... Full text Cite

Time-Consistent Majority Rules and Heterogenous Preferences in Group Decision-Making

Scholarly Edition · 2010 This paper studies a collective decision problem in which a group of individuals with interdependent preferences vote whether or not to implement a public project of unknown value. A utilitarian social planner aggregates these votes according to a majority ... Cite

Proposal power and majority rule in multilateral bargaining with costly recognition

Journal Article Journal of Economic Theory · September 1, 2007 This paper studies a sequential bargaining model in which agents expend efforts to be the proposer. In equilibrium, agents' effort choices are influenced by the prize and cost effects. The (endogenous) prize is the difference between the residual surplus a ... Full text Open Access Cite

Getting the Ball Rolling: Voluntary Contributions to a Large-Scale Public Project

Journal Article Journal of Public Economic Theory · October 2006 This paper examines dynamic voluntary contributions to a large-scale project. In equilibrium, contributions are influenced by the interplay of two opposing incentives. While agents prefer to free ride on others for contributions, they also prefer to en ... Cite

Managing switching costs in multiperiod procurements with strategic buyers

Journal Article International Economic Review · November 1, 2005 This article examines the use of switching costs by long-lived strategic buyers to manage dynamic competition between rival suppliers. The analysis reveals how buyers may employ switching costs to their advantage. We show that when switching costs are high ... Full text Open Access Cite

Contests with multiple rounds

Journal Article Games and Economic Behavior · April 1, 2005 This paper studies contests where players have the flexibility to add to their previous efforts after observing their rivals' most recent effort in an intermediate stage. It is found that (1) contrary to previous findings, the Stackelberg outcome where the ... Full text Cite

On the endogeneity of Cournot-Nash and Stackelberg equilibria: Games of accumulation

Journal Article Journal of Economic Theory · January 1, 2005 We characterize equilibria of games with two properties: (i) Agents have the opportunity to adjust their strategic variable after their initial choices and before payoffs occur; but (ii) they can only add to their initial amounts. The equilibrium set consi ... Full text Open Access Cite

Piecewise procurement of a large-scale project

Journal Article International Journal of Industrial Organization · November 1, 2004 This paper studies the optimal piecewise procurement of a large-scale project. In the unique Markov Perfect Equilibrium (MPE) of the dynamic procurement game, it is found that (1) unlike the static setting, the procurer's optimal strategy depends on the nu ... Full text Cite

Managing dynamic competition

Journal Article American Economic Review · September 1, 2002 In many important high-technology markets, including software development, data processing, communications, aeronautics, and defense, suppliers learn through experience how to provide better service at lower cost. This paper examines how a buyer designs dy ... Full text Open Access Cite

Learning by doing and dynamic regulation

Journal Article RAND Journal of Economics · January 1, 2002 From experience, regulated monopolists learn to employ cost-reducing innovations. We characterize the optimal regulation of an innovating monopolist with unknown costs. Regulatory policy is designed to minimize current costs of service while encouraging de ... Full text Cite

Why charities announce donations: A positive perspective

Journal Article Journal of Public Economics · September 1, 2001 Charities frequently announce contributions of donors as they accrue. Doing so induces donors to play a sequential-move rather than simultaneous-move game. We examine the conditions under which a charity prefers such sequential play. It is known that if do ... Full text Cite

Practices for managing information flows within organizations

Journal Article Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization · January 1, 1999 Firm organization determines how coworkers communicate and how information flows within the firm. Banking, accounting, consulting, and legal firms process proprietary information which their clients wish to protect. The firm's ability to safeguard and mana ... Full text Cite