We study round-robin and elimination tournaments with three players where one player is dominant, i.e., he has a higher value of winning than his weaker opponents. In every stage, a pair-wise match is modelled as an all-pay auction. We demonstrate that the expected payoff of the weak players in...

We study multi-stage sequential all-pay contests (auctions) where heterogeneous contestants are privately informed about a parameter (ability) that affects their cost of effort. We characterize the sub-game perfect equilibrium of these multi-stage sequential all-pay contests and analyze the...

We study round-robin tournaments with three players whose values of winning are common knowledge. In every stage a pair-wise match is modelled as an all-pay auction. The player who wins in two matches wins the tournament. We characterize the sub-game perfect equilibrium for symmetric (all...

We study two-player common-value all-pay auctions (contests) with asymmetric information under the assumption that one of the players has an information advantage over his opponent. We characterize the unique equilibrium in these contests, and examine the role of information in determining the...

This paper analyzes how all-pay auctions with endogenous prizes can be used to provide effort incentives. We show that wide classes of effort distributions can be implemented as equilibrium outcomes of such games. We also ask how all-pay auctions have to be structured so as to induce high...

We study a sequential all-pay auction where heterogeneous contestants are privately informed about a parameter (ability) that affects their cost of effort. In the case of two contestants, contestant 1 (the first mover) makes an effort in the first period, while contestant 2 (the second mover)...

We study all-pay auctions with multiple prizes. The players have the same value for all the certain prizes except for one uncertain prize for which each player has a private value. We characterize the equilibrium strategy and show that if the number of prizes is smaller than the number of...

We study two-stage all-pay auctions with two identical prizes. In each stage, players compete for one prize. Each player may win either one or two prizes. We analyze the equilibrium strategies where players' marginal values for the prizes are either declining or inclining.

We study a sequential two-stage all-pay auction with two identical prizes. In each stage, the players compete for one prize and each player may win either one or two prizes. The designer may impose a cap on the players' bids in each of the stages. We analyze the equilibrium in this sequential...

We study two-stage political contests with private entry costs. We show that these political contests could be ineffective, namely, the chance of low ability candidates participating in the contest might be higher than the chance of high ability candidates participating in the contest (and...