In this paper, a group contest is analyzed, where the groups are allowed to determine their sharing rules either sequentially or simultaneously. It is found that in case the more numerous group determines its sharing rule prior to the smaller group, rent dissipation in the group contest is...

We develop a model in which two firms that have proposed to merge are privately informed about merger-specific efficiencies. This enables the firms to influence the merger control procedure by strategically revealing their information to an antitrust authority. Although the information improves...

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock's (1980) classic model where the influence activities are "black-boxed." Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be...

We develop a model in which two firms that have proposed to merge are privately informed about merger-specific efficiencies. This enables the firms to influence the merger control procedure by strategically revealing their information to an antitrust authority. Although the information improves...

This paper examines the problem of renegotiation of infrastructure concessions in Latin America using a model of litigation with an application to incentive contracts. Opportunistic renegotiation is here defined as a rent seeking game, to show the effect of the legal system characteristics in...

Across many forms of rent seeking contests, the impact of risk aversion on equilibrium play is indeterminate. We design an experiment to compare individuals’ decisions across three contests which are isomorphic under risk-neutrality, but are typically not isomorphic under other risk...

This paper applies the concept of optimal obfuscation to fast-growth, high-inequality emergent economies. The obfuscation level depends on the nature of policy, government propaganda or 'spin', and GDP growth. The conditions are identified for a negative impact of economic growth on electoral...

We analyze a contest between two groups where group members have differing valuations for the contested rent. Generically the pivotal group member with the median valuation of the rent will not act himself but will want to send a group member that has preferences different to her own into the...

This paper demonstrates that the inclusion of a consumer-player can result in a decrease in total rent-seeking and rent-defending activities in a monopoly context. In particular, in a Tullock (short-run) model, those expenditures actually decrease. In the Corcoran (long-run) model, those...

The key element of models of contest is the Contest Success Function (CSF) which specifies the winning probabilities of agents. We provide an axiomatization of two parametric families of CSF’s. In the first, the winning probability of each agent depends on the investments and a vector of...