We study the voluntary provision of a discrete public good via the contribution game. Players independently and simultaneously make nonrefundable contributions to fund a discrete public good, which is provided if and only if the contributions are at least as great as the cost of production. We...

Many contests feature a best-of-N structure. We focus on best-of-three contests between equally-skilled players. Using a general symmetric contest success function, we determine the relationship between the players' efforts in the various rounds. These results imply that the contests are more...

We analyze an all-pay group contest problem in which individual members' efforts are aggregated via the best-shot technology and the prize is a public good for the winning group. The interplay of within-group free-riding and across-group competition allows for a wide variety of equilibria,...

We analyze two-player contests in which each player exerts effort to influence his probability of winning the prize. Using minimal assumptions on the contest success function, we determine the dependence of equilibrium efforts, success probabilities, and expected payoffs on players' values for...