Perfectly discriminating contests (or all pay auction) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals … devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their …

This paper studies a large class of imperfectly discriminating contests, referred to as elastic contests, that induce … definite answers regarding the extent of rent dissipation in Tullock contests with intermediate values of the decisiveness …

Many economic and political decisions are the outcome of strategic contests for a given prize. The nature of such … contests can be determined by a designer who is driven by political considerations with a specific political culture. The main …