Perfectly discriminating contests (or all pay auction) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals … devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their … timing of investment are studied. With simultaneous investments, equilibria in which players play a pure strategy in the …

where no contestant would wish to change his choice of contest, results in the allocation of players to contests that … maximizes aggregate equilibrium effort. For a class of oligopoly models that are equivalent to contests, this implies output …

encroacher's valuation of the asset is increasing in the asset owner's investment. Due to incomplete property rights, the … encroacher and asset owner engage in a contest over the control of the asset after investment has taken place. A standard result … is that the asset owner will underinvest in the asset relative to the first-best level of investment when property rights …

. This paper analyses the investment incentives of such agents and the role of incumbency advantages in the contest …. Depending on the advantages, an increase in the productivity of the investment can decrease or increase the amount of investment …. The results are applied to autocrats' investment behavior and job specific investment in organizations. …