This paper analyzes incumbency contests in a large population setting. Incumbents repeatedly face different challengers, holding on to their positions until defeated in a contest. Defeated incumbents turn into challengers until they win a contest against an incumbent, thereby regaining an...

In contest models with symmetric valuations, equilibrium payoffs are positive shares of the value of the prize. In contrast to a bargaining situation, these shares sum to less than one because a share of the value is lost due to rent-dissipation. We ask: can every such division into payoff...

Extreme adverse selection arises when private information has unbounded support, and market breakdown occurs when no trade is the only equilibrium outcome. We study extreme adverse selection via the limit behavior of a financial market as the support of private information converges to an...

This paper analyzes iterated incumbency contests with heterogeneous valuations in a large population setting. Incumbents repeatedly face different challengers, holding on to their positions until defeated in a contest. Defeated incumbents turn into challengers until they win a contest against an...

In imperfectly discriminating contests with symmetric valuations, equilibrium payoffs are positive shares of the value of the prize. In contrast to a bargaining situation, players’ shares sum to less than one because a residual share of the value is lost due to rent dissipation. In this paper,...