The paper deals with rent-seeking behaviour among agents competing for future shares of a common renewable natural resource. Rent-seeking might become profitable when the agents expect that the distribution of the natural resource in future periods will be dependent on the agents' extraction of...

We introduce learning by doing in a dynamic contest. Contestants compete in an early round and can use the experience gained to reduce effort cost in a subsequent contest. A contest designer can decide how much of the prize mass to distribute in the early contest and how much to leave for the...

Competition between heterogeneous participants often leads to low effort provision in contests. We consider a principal who can divide her fixed budget between skill-enhancing training and the contest prize. Training can reduce heterogeneity, which increases effort. However, allocating some of...

We consider a principal who can distribute a prize fund over two consecutive all-pay auction contests. Contestants are heterogeneous in the sense that one of them has a head start in the first contest. The winner of contest one gains an advantage in contest two; the size of this win advantage...

We introduce learning by doing in a dynamic contest. Contestants compete in an early round and can use the experience gained to reduce effort cost in a subsequent contest. A contest designer can decide how much of the prize mass to distribute in the early contest and how much to leave for the...

This paper analyses endogenous formation of technology sharing coalitions with asymmetric firms. Coalition partners produce complementary technology advancements, although firms do not co-operate on R&D investment level or in the product market. The equilibrium coalition outcome is either...

In this paper we look at motivation over time by setting up a dynamic contest model where winning the first contest yields an advantage in the second contest. The win advantage introduces an asymmetry into the competition that we find reduces the expected value to the contestants of being in the...

Where product innovation requires several complementary patents, fragmented property rights can be a factor that limits firms' willingness to invest in the development and commercialization of new products. This paper studies multiple simultaneous R&D contests for complementary patents and how...