Opportunity Hunters: A Model of Competitive Sequential Inspections

Ran Eilat, Zvika Neeman and Eilon Solan

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2026, vol. 18, issue 2, 228-67

Abstract: We introduce a new type of games, called "opportunity-hunting games," in which two players compete to discover an uncertain event ("opportunity") that occurs at an unobserved and random point in time. Players can inspect whether the event has already occurred again and again, but each inspection is costly. Varying the parameters of the model spans the range from games where competition between the players to be the first to identify the opportunity is the dominant force, to games in which free riding on the other player's effort is the dominant force. We characterize the game's unique symmetric Markov perfect equilibrium.

JEL-codes: C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1257/mic.20240245

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