In the literature the outcome of contests is either interpreted as win probabilities or as shares of the prize. With this in mind, we examine two approaches to contest success functions. In the first we analyze the implications of contestants' incomplete information concerning the 'type' of the...

We analyze how a contest organizer chooses optimally the winner when the contestants' efforts are already exerted and commitment to the use of a given contest success function is not possible. We define the notion of rationalizability in mixed-strategies to capture such a situation. Our approach...