We analyze how a contest organizer chooses the winner when the contestants.efforts are already exerted and commitment to the use of a given contest success function is not possible. We define the notion of rationalizability in mixed-strategies to capture such a situation. Our approach allows to...

We analyze how a contest organizer chooses the winner when the contestants.efforts are already exerted and commitment to the use of a given contest success function is not possible. We define the notion of rationalizability in mixed-strategies to capture such a situation. Our approach allows to...

We apply an indirect evolutionary approach to players' perceived prize valuations in contests. Evolution in finite populations leads to preferences that overstate the prize's material value and induce overexpenditure. We establish an equivalence between the behavior evolutionarily stable...

In this paper I will analyse the redistribution of income amongst n generations using the Single-mindedness Theory. I will introduce a new expression for the balanced-budget constraint, no longer based on lump- sum transfers as in the traditional literature, but rather on more realistic labour...

We provide an overview of experimental literature on contests and point out the two main phenomena observed in most contest experiments: (i) overbidding relative to the standard Nash equilibrium prediction and (ii) heterogeneous behavior of ex-ante symmetric contestants. Based on the sample of...

Many real-world conflicts are to some extent determined randomly by noise. The way in which noise is modeled in contest success functions (CSFs) has has important implications both for the possibility of forming cooperative relationships as well as for the features of such relationships. In a...

Large informal economy and high violence in daily political life are two demarcating features of Less Developed Countries (L.D.C.s). Is there a causal link? A possible channel is political clientelism, which arises from the need to protect the livelihood of informal sector workers in a...

This study provides a unified framework to compare three canonical types of contests: winner-take-all contests won by the best performer, winner-take-all lotteries where probability of success is proportional to performance, and proportional-prize contests in which rewards are shared in...

We experimentally test the qualitatively different equilibrium predictions of two theoretical models of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets. In such a network, the attacker’s objective is to assault at least one target successfully and the defender’s objective is to...

The attack and defense game is a game in which an attacker (a group of attackers) has an incentive to revise the status quo and a defender (a group of defenders) wants to protect it. The asymmetry in objectives creates incompatible interests and results in a mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium....