The strategic advantage of interdependent preferences in rent-seeking contests

We study rent-seeking contests, where the set of players contains two groups of players — one with independent preferences and the other with interdependent preferences. It turns out that the latter experience a strategic advantage in general two-player contests and in n-player-contests with nonincreasing marginal efficiency. As to the case of general n-player contests with increasing marginal efficiency, the strategic advantage prevails (with one qualification) provided convexity is sufficiently weak. For some higher degree of convexity other types of equilibria can exist, including equilibrium types where individualists receive higher pay-off.