The key element of models of contest is the Contest Success Function (CSF) which specifies the winning probabilities of agents. We provide an axiomatization of two parametric families of CSF’s. In the first, the winning probability of each agent depends on the investments and a vector of...

We experimentally test a rent seeking model under five levels of competition. At one extreme, a subject’s probability of winning a prize is equal to her share of the total expenditures. At lower levels of competition, a subject’s probability of winning is affected more by her own...

Trade opportunities are generally seen as valuable instruments to improve the allocation of resources in society. However, when the traded rights are secured through unproductive rent-seeking contests, the tradeability of the rents may provide stronger incentives to invest in rent-seeking...

It is well known that a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium does not exist for a two-player rent-seeking contest when the contest success function parameter is greater than two. We analyze the contest using the concept of equilibrium in secure strategies, which is a generalization of the Nash...

This paper studies a large class of imperfectly discriminating contests, referred to as elastic contests, that induce players to either overbid a standing bid or to abstain from bidding altogether. Many common forms of contest are elastic. In any equilibrium of an elastic contest, there is...

This paper affords an informal introduction to the work of economists on interest groups and their role in the political process. Among the major analysts considered are Olson, Stigler, Posner, Peltzman, Becker and the Virginia economists, notably Tullock and Tollison. Political scientists are...

This paper presents a general rent-seeking model in which participants decide on entry before choosing their levels of efforts. The conventional wisdom in the rent-seeking literature suggests that the rent dissipation increases with the number of potential participants and with their...

Trade opportunities are generally seen as valuable instruments to improve the allocation of resources in society. However, when the traded rights are secured through unproductive rent-seeking contests, the tradeability of the rents may provide stronger incentives to invest in rent-seeking...