J. Atsu Amegashie () (Department of Economics, University of Guelph)
Abstract
I consider a two-stage (dynamic) elimination contest with uninformed and informed players. Informed players can signal their type to future uninformed opponents through their efforts in the first stage. Uninformed players might make wrong inferences. It is in this sense that they are boundedly rational. Relative to the benchmark case of complete information, I find that there exists an equilibrium in which an informed player exerts a higher effort in the semi-final in the incomplete-information version of the game, if the uninformed player is sufficiently weak. The informed player exerts a smaller effort, if the uninformed player is sufficiently strong. Intuitively, informed players may want to scare future uninformed opponents by exerting higher efforts in earlier rounds. However, trying to scare a very strong player may not be a sensible strategy because he might compete very fiercely. Surprisingly, I find that a higher semi-final effort by the informed player is not necessarily interpreted by the uninformed player as a signal of higher ability.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Guelph, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
0510.