Lotteries vs. all-pay auctions in fair and biased contests

Arbeitspapier

The form of contests for a single fixed prize can be determined by a designer who maximizes the contestants' efforts. This paper establishes that, under common knowledge of the two asymmetric contestants' prize valuations, a fair Tullock-type endogenously determined lottery is always superior to an all-pay-auction; it yields larger expected efforts (revenues) for the contest designer. If the contest can be unfair (structural discrimination is allowed), then the designer's payoff under the optimal lottery is equal to his expected payoff under the optimal all-pay auction.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 7032

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Analysis of Collective Decision-Making: General ; Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
• Thema: contest design ; efforts (revenue) maximization ; discrimination ; endogenous lottery ; all-pay auction ; Wettbewerb ; Mechanism Design ; Glücksspiel ; Auktionstheorie ; Gerechtigkeit ; Theorie

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Epstein, Gil S. ; Mealem, Yosef ; Nitsan, Shemuel
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2012

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/69449
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ