Contests with ambiguity

Contests with Size Effects Contests with Size Effects

In this paper we analyze the structure of contest equilibria with a variable number of agents. First we analyze a situation where the total prize depends on the number of agents and where every single agent faces opportunity costs of investing in the contest. Second we analyze a situation where the agents face a trade-off between productive and appropriative investments. Here, the number of age...

Contests with multi-tasking

Contests with multiple rounds

This paper studies contests where players have the ßexibility 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 Þndings, the Stackelberg outcome where the underdog leads and the favorite follows cannot be an equilibrium. (2) There are multiple subgame perfect equilibria all occuring on the underd...

Contests with productive effort

I consider competitions in which, conditional on winning or losing, the effort exerted by a competitor does not necessarily decrease his payoff. This happens, for example, in competitions for promotions in which workers are intrinsically motivated, and in research and development races in which better performance implies a higher payoff from winning. I characterize players’ equilibrium payoffs ...

Contests with Investment

Perfectly discriminating contests (or all pay auction) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their ability to …ght in the contest. This paper studies a two stage game where in the …rst stage, players can invest to lower their bid cost in a perfectly discrim...