Strategy and Dynamics in Contests

Kai A. Konrad completed his Ph.D. in Economics in 1990 at the University of Munich. He has held teaching and research positions at the universities of Munich, Bonn and Bergen and at the University of California, Irvine. He currently holds a chair in Public Finance at the Free University of Berlin and is also a Director of a research unit at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). He is a Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics and on the editorial boards of several other journals. His research interests are focused on contests, conflict and tournaments in various institutional contexts.

• Preface and Acknowledgements ; 1. An Introduction to Contests ; 1.1 A definition ; 1.2 Examples ; 1.3 The structure of the book ; 2. Types of Contests ; 2.1 The first-price all-pay auction ; 2.2 Additive noise ; 2.3 The Tullock contest ; 2.4 Experimental evidence ; 2.5 Evolutionary success ; 2.6 Summary ; 3. Timing and Participation ; 3.1 Endogenous timing ; 3.2 Voluntary participation ; 3.3 Exclusion ; 3.4 Delegation ; 3.5 Summary ; 4. Cost and prize structure ; 4.1 Choice of cost ; 4.2 The structure of prizes ; 4.3 Endogenous prizes ; 4.4 Summary ; 5. Externalities ; 5.1 State lotteries and financing public goods ; 5.2 A loser's preference about who wins ; 5.3 Personnel economics and sabotage ; 5.4 Information externalities and campaigning ; 5.5 Inter-group contests and free riding ; 5.6 Conclusions ; 6. Nested contests ; 6.1 Exogenous sharing rules ; 6.2 The choice of sharing rules ; 6.3 Intra-group conflict ; 6.4 A strategy of analysis of nested contests ; 7. Alliances ; 7.1 The alliance formation puzzle ; 7.2 Solutions to the alliance formation puzzle ; 7.3 Summary ; 8. Dynamic battles ; 8.1 The elimination tournament ; 8.2 The race ; 8.3 The tug-of-war ; 8.4 Iterating incumbency fights ; 8.5 Endogenous fighting ; 8.6 Summary: the discouragement effect ; 9. Conclusions