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Contest Copycats: Adversarial Duplication of Effort in Contests

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  • Jonas Send

Abstract

Participants in an innovation contest may steal their opponents’ ideas to enhance their chance of winning. To model this, I introduce the ability to copy another player’s effort in a Tullock contest between two players. I characterise the unique equilibrium in this game dependent on the cost of copying and one of the players’ productivity advantage. If effort costs are low, the less productive player is more likely to win the contest. The model’s comparative statics have important implications for governments who subsidise ï¬ rms in contests and for contest designers.

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  • Jonas Send, 2021. "Contest Copycats: Adversarial Duplication of Effort in Contests," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2021-17, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2021-17
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation Contest; Espionage; Imitation; Tullock Contest;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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