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Contests with Supporters

Author

Listed:
  • Bharat Goel
  • Arijit Sen

Abstract

In many real-world contests ( political elections / lobbying for public projects), contestants try to engage supporters (unemployed youth / local residents) to fight for them. Such contests have the following features: a significant part of a contestant’s supporter compensation is contingent upon the contestant winning the contest, and supporters are (at least partially) mercenary in that higher compensation offers do induce them to switch allegiance away from a ‘like-minded’ contestant. We study a class of contests with the above features, where two contestants – a favourite and an underdog – recruit supporters by offering contingent (and non-contingent) compensations in cash or in excludable public goods like political access. Our analysis delineates contest equilibria with the following features: Contestants’ offers of contingent compensations force potential supporters to choose their allegiance on the basis of predicted winners – and that act, in and of itself, enables the favourite to extend her lead. In some cases, it is possible that the underdog is doubly disadvantaged – her total compensation bill is no less than the favourite’s though she manages to attract a smaller army of supporters and thus falls farther behind in the race. The contest is necessarily dissipative for the underdog: she would be strictly better off under a ban on the hiring of supporters (though she is the one who offers higher supporter compensation). In some cases, the availability of unemployed youth to act as supporters in contests causes everyone in the economy to lose (except, maybe, the supporters themselves).

Suggested Citation

  • Bharat Goel & Arijit Sen, 2019. "Contests with Supporters," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2019-08, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2019-08
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prat, Andrea, 2002. "Campaign Spending with Office-Seeking Politicians, Rational Voters, and Multiple Lobbies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 162-189, March.
    2. Ashish Chaturvedi, 2005. "Rigging elections with violence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 189-202, July.
    3. Baron, David P., 1994. "Electoral Competition with Informed and Uninformed Voters," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 33-47, March.
    4. Paul Collier & Pedro Vicente, 2012. "Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of elections in Sub-Saharan Africa," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 117-147, October.
    5. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Political Competition with Campaign Contributions and Informative Advertising," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 772-804, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contests; supporters; elections; lobbying;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

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