We investigate observed rent dissipation-the ratio of the total costs of rent seeking to the monetary value of the rent-in winner-take-all and share contests, where preferences are more general than usually assumed in the literature. With concave valuation of the rent, we find that contests can...

The experimental evidence on contests often reports overspending of contest participants compared to the theoretical Nash equilibrium outcome. We show that a standard level-k model may rationalize overspending in contests. This result complements the existing literature on overspending in...

We study how changes in the information available to the players of a symmetric common-value Tullock contest with incomplete information affect their payoffs and their incentives to exert effort. For the class of contests where players' state dependent cost of effort is multiplicative, we show...

We consider multi-stage elimination contests, where agents’ efforts at different stages generate some output for the organizers. Depending on the output function we characterize the optimal prize structure of the tournament and show that it is almost efficient. We have found that in some cases...

Connections between individuals facilitate the exchange of goods, resources and information and create benefits. These connections may be exploited by adversaries to spread their attacks as well. What is the optimal way to design and defend networks in the face of attacks We develop a model with...

We consider multi-stage elimination contests, where agents efforts at different stages generate some output for the organizers. Depending on the output function we characterize the optimal prize structure of the tournament and show that it is almost efficient. We have found that in some cases...