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Contests with three or more heterogeneous agents

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  • Parreiras, Sérgio O.
  • Rubinchik, Anna

Abstract

We study monotone equilibrium behavior in contests with observable effort (bid) where three or more participants have distinct risk attitudes and the monetary value for the prize of each is drawn independently from a distinct distribution. These differences can either cause a player to drop out, that is always choose zero effort regardless of his valuation, or use "all-or-nothing" strategies with discontinuous effort choice. Neither complete drop-out nor discontinuous bidding with finitely many gaps is consistent with pure strategy monotone Bayesian-Nash equilibrium in a contest with either ex-ante identical players or only two distinct participants.

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  • Parreiras, Sérgio O. & Rubinchik, Anna, 2010. "Contests with three or more heterogeneous agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 703-715, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:68:y:2010:i:2:p:703-715
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    Cited by:

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    2. Xiao, Jun, 2018. "Equilibrium analysis of the all-pay contest with two nonidentical prizes: Complete results," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 21-34.
    3. Thomas Giebe & Paul Schweinzer, 2014. "All-pay-all aspects of political decision making," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 73-90, October.
    4. Kirkegaard, René, 2013. "Incomplete information and rent dissipation in deterministic contests," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 261-266.
    5. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    6. Minoru Kitahara & Ryo Ogawa, 2010. "All-Pay Auctions with Handicaps," ISER Discussion Paper 0781, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised Jun 2010.
    7. Fibich, Gadi & Oren, Gal, 2014. "An elementary proof of the common maximal bid in asymmetric first-price and all-pay auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 190-191.
    8. Lorens Imhof & Matthias Kräkel, 2016. "Ex post unbalanced tournaments," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(1), pages 73-98, February.
    9. Kirkegaard, René, 2013. "Handicaps in incomplete information all-pay auctions with a diverse set of bidders," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 98-110.
    10. Knyazev, Dmitriy, 2013. "Optimal elimination contest," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 09/2013, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    11. Häfner, Samuel, 2017. "A tug-of-war team contest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 372-391.
    12. Yizhaq Minchuk & Aner Sela, 2018. "Asymmetric sequential search under incomplete information," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 315-325, June.
    13. Yizhaq Minchuk, 2014. "Aggressive Bidding of Weak Bidders in All-Pay Auction," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(3), pages 1665-1668.
    14. Bettina Klose & Paul Schweinzer, 2022. "Auctioning risk: the all-pay auction under mean-variance preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 881-916, June.
    15. Ron Siegel, 2010. "Asymmetric Contests with Conditional Investments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2230-2260, December.
    16. Timothy P. Hubbard & Rene Kirkegaard, 2015. "Asymmetric Auctions with More Than Two Bidders," Working Papers 1502, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    17. Chen, Zhuoqiong (Charlie) & Ong, David & Segev, Ella, 2017. "Heterogeneous risk/loss aversion in complete information all-pay auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 23-37.
    18. Christian Ewerhart & Julia Lareida, 2018. "Voluntary disclosure in asymmetric contests," ECON - Working Papers 279, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jul 2023.
    19. Seel, Christian, 2014. "The value of information in asymmetric all-pay auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 330-338.
    20. Kirkegaard, René, 2012. "Favoritism in asymmetric contests: Head starts and handicaps," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 226-248.
    21. Andreoni, James & Brownback, Andy, 2017. "All pay auctions and group size: Grading on a curve and other applications," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 361-373.
    22. Barbieri, Stefano & Kovenock, Dan & Malueg, David A. & Topolyan, Iryna, 2019. "Group contests with private information and the “Weakest Link”," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 382-411.
    23. Brookins, Philip & Jindapon, Paan, 2021. "Risk preference heterogeneity in group contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    24. Xiao, Jun, 2016. "Asymmetric all-pay contests with heterogeneous prizes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 178-221.
    25. Chi, Chang Koo, 2018. "An analysis of the two-bidder all-pay auction with common values," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 17/2018, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.

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