We introduce learning by doing in a dynamic contest. Contestants compete in an early round and can use the experience gained to reduce effort cost in a subsequent contest. A contest designer can decide how much of the prize mass to distribute in the early contest and how much to leave for the...

A firm may induce voters or elected politicians to support a policy it favors by suggesting that it is more likely to invest in a district whose voters or representatives support the policy. In equilibrium, no one vote may be decisive, and the policy may gain strong support though the majority...

This Article examines the merits of vote buying at a more detailed level than has been done previously. Various scenarios are played-out of how an actual election would function if vote buying were permitted. The Article concludes, in line with past scholarship, but for different reasons, that...

If the authorities have the opportunity to receive incomes uncontrolled by society, this gives them great freedom of action. Such incomes do not depend on the quality of the public goods delivered, nor on the investment climate. Given a certain minimal level of organization, taxpayers can try to...

The standard contest model in which participants compete in a single dimension is well understood and documented. Multi-dimension extensions are possible but are liable to increase the complexity of the contest structure, mitigating one of its main advantages: simplicity. In this paper we...

Note: The following is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract as it appeared in the print journal. Two models are developed to investigate the social welfare implication of the number and size of the lobbying interest groups. The first addresses social rent dissipation of...

In many contests, players can influence their chances of winning through multiple activities or "arms." We develop a simple model of multi-armed contests and axiomatize its contest success function. We then analyze the outcomes of the multi-armed contest and the effects of allowing or...

In the standard model of a rent-seeking contest, firms optimally employ resources in an attempt to win the contest and obtain the rent. Typically, it is assumed that these resources may be hired at any desired level at some fixed, exogenous per-unit cost. In many real-world rent-seeking...

In this paper we revisit Tullock's (1980) paradox and consider a rent-seeking game in which parties face increasing returns to effort. We allow parties to randomize their strategies and give them an exit option. Given the mixed participation strategies of the parties, valuable rents may...