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 rentseeking efforts often falls considerably short of the prize that is...

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 rentseeking efforts often falls considerably short of the prize that is...

We consider a two-player advertising race subject to momentum. Momentum is modelled as a complementarity between current and past campaign spending in a way that is reminiscent of models of addiction and habit formation: the more effective a player's past spending has been, the more effective...