An analysis of the war of attrition and the all-pay auction

We study the war of attrition and the all-pay auction when players' signals are affiliated and symmetrically distributed. We (a) find sufficient conditions for the existence of symmetric monotonic equilibrium bidding strategies and (b) examine the performance of these auction forms in terms of the expected revenue accruing to the seller. Under our conditions the war of attrition raises greater expected revenue than all other known sealed-bid auction forms. (C) 1997 Academic Press.