Effort maximization in asymmetric contest games with heterogeneous contestants

Franke, Jörg; Kanzow, Christian; Leininger, Wolfgang; Schwartz, Alexandra

doi:10.1007/s00199-011-0657-z

“…Such superiority is attained without resorting to structural discrimination that affects the parameters of the contest success function, as in Clark and Riis (2000), Epstein et al (2011a), (2011b), Franke (2007), Franke et al (2011) andLien (1990), which may be difficult to control or even illegal. Furthermore, allowing taxation that result in a budget surplus, the optimal differential taxation scheme under the APA generates the maximal possible total efforts, which are equal to the highest contestant's value of the prize.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That is, in general, this seemingly plausible expectation is not fulfilled. This is the case when the CSF is the most commonly assumed lottery, Tullock (1980), and, in particular, the simple lottery that will be used to diagrammatically illustrate our 1 Alternative forms of discrimination via the control of the contest success function are examined in Clark and Riis (2000), Epstein et al (2011a), (2011b), Franke (2007) , Franke et al (2011) and Lien (1990). 2 For a recent study on the meaning and rationalization of CSFs, see Corchon and Dahm (2010). claim.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity and effectiveness of optimal taxation in contests under an all-pay auction

Mealem

¹

,

Nitzan

²

2013

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The means of contest design may include differential taxation of the prize. This paper establishes that, given a revenue-maximizing contest designer who faces a balanced-budget constraint, the optimal taxation scheme corresponding to an all-pay auction is appealing in two senses. First, it ensures exceptional equitable final prize valuations. Second, it is effective; it yields total contestants' efforts that are larger than those obtained under almost any Tullock-type lottery. Furthermore, when a budget surplus is allowed, the superiority of optimal taxation under the APA is preserved in terms of equity and effectiveness relative to optimal taxation under any contest success function. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL-Code: D700, D720, D740, D780.

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“…This is achieved by favoring specific (weak) contests through the bias (which amounts to biased lotteries or raffles) to induce a more balanced playing field among contestants. This leads to the question whether in the indirect provision game with a fixed-prize raffle of Morgan biased raffles could be used to further increase ticket sales and hence increase potential provision of the public good such that the efficient amount G * can even be implemented with a finite prize sum R. Franke et al (2011) consider general biased contest success functions of the Tullock type, which determine individual winning probability in a contest of n contestants as a function of individual efforts by…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Franke et al (2011) solve the contest design problem of finding the optimal individual bias weights α i , i = 1, . .…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the Efficient Provision of Public Goods by Means of Lotteries

Franke

¹

,

Leininger

²

2013

Self Cite

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The working papers published in the Series constitute work in progress circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comments. Views expressed represent exclusively the authors' own opinions and do not necessarily refl ect those of the editors. Terms of use: Documents in Ruhr Economic Papers #399

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Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests

Chowdhury

¹

,

Esteve-GonzÃ¡lez

²

,

Mukherjee³

2022

Southern Economic Journal

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The heterogeneous abilities of the players in various competitive contexts often lead to undesirable outcomes such as low effort provision, lack of diversity, and inequality. A range of policies are implemented to mitigate such issues by enforcing competitive balance, i.e., leveling the playing field. While a number of such policies are aimed at increasing competition, affirmative action (AA) policies are historically practiced in an ethical response to historical discrimination against particular social groups among winners. This survey summarizes the rapidly growing literature of contest theory on AA and other policies that level the playing field. Using a general theoretical structure, we outline research on player and contest designer behavior under a multitude of policy mechanisms; and discuss the theoretical, experimental, and empirical results in relation to some of the common debates surrounding AA.

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Effort maximization in asymmetric contest games with heterogeneous contestants

Cited by 111 publications

References 24 publications

Equity and effectiveness of optimal taxation in contests under an all-pay auction

Equity and effectiveness of optimal taxation in contests under an all-pay auction

On the Efficient Provision of Public Goods by Means of Lotteries

Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests

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