In this paper I consider the desirability of drugs that enhance cognitive abilities in the context of tournaments that are used as optimal labor contracts as in Lazear and Rosen (1981). Such drugs reduce the number of voluntary participants in a tournament, but increase individual and total...

We study equilibrium in a multistage race in which players compete in a sequence of simultaneous move component contests. Players may win a prize for winning each component contest, as well as a prize for winning the overall race. Each component contest is an all-pay auction with complete...

We characterize the unique Markov perfect equilibrium of a tug-of-war without exogenous noise, in which players have the opportunity to engage in a sequence of battles in an attempt to win the war. Each battle is an all-pay auction in which the player expending the greater resources wins. In...

Clustering and lack of sufficient diversification in research strategies has been identified as an important problem for delegated research as it takes place in design contests by Erat and Krishnan (2012). We show that this problem can be solved by local competition (such as bribery, lobbying or...

We study the role of an imbalance in fighting strengths when players bargain in the shadow of conflict. Our experimental results suggest: In a simple bargaining game with an exogenous mediation proposal, the likelihood of conflict is independent of the balance of power. If bargaining involves...

Altruists and envious people who meet in contests are symbionts. They do better than a population of narrowly rational individuals. If there are only altruists and envious individuals, a particular mixture of altruists and envious individuals is evolutionarily stable.

Why is there delay in contests? In this paper we follow and extend the line of reasoning of Carl von Clausewitz to explain delay. For a given contest technology, delay may occur if there is an asymmetry between defense and attack, if the expected change in relative strengths is moderate, and if...

The formation of an alliance in conflict situations is known to suffer from a collective action problem and from the potential of internal conflict. We show that budget constraints of an intermediate size can overcome this strong disadvantage and explain the formation of alliances.

It can be advantageous for an office motivated party A to spend effort to make it public that a group of voters will lose from party A’s policy proposal. Such effort is called inverse campaigning. The inverse campaigning equilibria are described for the case where the two parties can...

This paper reconsiders the comparison between hierarchical contests and single-stage contests. A condition is given that characterizes whether and when the aggregate equilibrium payoff of contestants is higher in the single-stage contest, and when the single-stage contest is more likely to award...