Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339342 
Year of Publication: 
2026
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 447
Version Description: 
Revised version, January 2026
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
The n-player Tullock contest with complete information is known to admit explicit solutions in special cases, such as (i) homogeneous valuations, (ii) constant returns, and (iii) two contestants. But can the model be solved more generally? In this paper, we show that key characteristics of the equilibrium, such as individual efforts, winning probabilities, and payoffs, cannot, in general, be expressed in terms of the primitives of the model using only basic arithmetic operations and the extraction of roots. In this sense, the Tullock contest is intractable. We argue that our formal concept of tractability captures the intuitive notion of the term.
Subjects: 
Tullock contest
pure-strategy Nash equilibrium
solution by radicals
Galois theory
JEL: 
C02
C72
D72
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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