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Contests—a comparison of timing and information structures

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  • Sandra Ludwig

Abstract

We study a model of imperfectly discriminating contests with two ex ante symmetric agents. We consider four institutional settings: Contestants move either sequentially or simultaneously and in addition their types are either public or private information. We find that an effort-maximizing designer of the contest prefers the sequential to the simultaneous setting from an ex ante perspective. Moreover, the sequential contest Pareto dominates the simultaneous one when the contestants’ types are sufficiently negatively correlated. Regarding the information structure, the designer ex ante prefers private information while the contestants prefer public information. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

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  • Sandra Ludwig, 2012. "Contests—a comparison of timing and information structures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 341-355, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:153:y:2012:i:3:p:341-355
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9797-8
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    Cited by:

    1. Christian Ewerhart & Federico Quartieri, 2020. "Unique equilibrium in contests with incomplete information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(1), pages 243-271, July.
    2. Lu, Jingfeng & Lu, David, 2020. "Task arrangement in team competitions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    3. Maria Arbatskaya & Hideo Konishi, 2021. "Dynamic Team Contests with Complementary Efforts," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1033, Boston College Department of Economics.
    4. Grossmann, Martin, 2014. "Uncertain contest success function," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 134-148.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sequential contests; Asymmetric information; Rent-seeking; D72; C72;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

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