Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/111214 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 155
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
This paper studies a large class of imperfectly discriminating contests, referred to as elastic contests, that induce players to either overbid a standing bid or to abstain from bidding altogether. Many common forms of contest are elastic. In any equilibrium of an elastic contest, there is complete rent dissipation for all but at most one player. This result is used to show that in any sufficiently decisive anonymous standard contest, any equilibrium is an all-pay auction equilibrium. Thus, the analysis offers strong support for the robustness of the all-pay auction. The approach also delivers definite answers regarding the extent of rent dissipation in Tullock contests with intermediate values of the decisiveness parameter.
Subjects: 
Contests
all-pay auction
rent-seeking
mixed Nash equilibrium
rent dissipation
JEL: 
C72
D45
D72
L12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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