Multi-Stage Voting and Sequential Elimination with Productive Players

This paper analyzes a sequential voting mechanism that eliminates at each round one candidate, until only one of them is left (the winner). The candidates are the voters and they only differ across their skill level. The payoff allocated to the winner depends on the sequence of elimination of the players’ skills, the rest of the players receiving a payoff of zero. We fully characterize the equilibria of the game with two skills. The winner must be a high-skilled player if there is an initial majority of strong types. On the contrary, a high-skilled player might win with an initial majority of weak players independently of the size of the majority. For an arbitrary number of types, if some type of candidates form a strict majority at the first stage, the winner belongs either to the majoritarian type or to a more skilled one.