Hybrid All-Pay and Winner-Pay Contests

    Abstract

    In many contests in economic and political life, both all-pay and winner-pay expenditures matter for winning. This paper studies such hybrid contests under symmetry and asymmetry. The symmetric model is very general but still yields a simple closed-form solution. More contestants tend to lead to substitution toward winner-pay investments, and total expenditures are always lower than in the corresponding all-pay contest. With a biased decision process and two contestants, the favored contestant wins with a higher likelihood, chooses less winner-pay investments, and contributes more to total expenditures. An endogenous bias that maximizes total expenditures disfavors the high-valuation contestant but still makes her the more likely one to win.
    Original languageEnglish
    Number of pages31
    Publication statusPublished - 2017
    SeriesUniversity of Copenhagen. Institute of Economics. Discussion Papers (Online)
    Number17-20
    ISSN1601-2461

    Keywords

    • Faculty of Social Sciences
    • rent-seeking
    • lobbying
    • influence activities
    • multiple influence channels
    • producer theory
    • C72
    • D24
    • D72
    • D74

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