Considering several main types of dynamic contests (the race, the tug-of-war, elimination contests and iterated incumbency fights) we identify a common pattern: the discouragement effect. This effect explains why the sum of rent-seeking efforts often falls considerably short of the prize that is...

A lack of sufficient diversification in research strategies has been identified as an important problem for delegated research. We show that this problem can be solved by local competition (such as bribery, lobbying, rent seeking, competition at the patent office) among players who apply the...