IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/nepswp/2013_008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A contest success function for rankings

Author

Listed:
  • Vesperoni, Alberto

    (University of Siegen)

Abstract

A contest is a game where several players compete for winning prizes by expending costly efforts. We assume that the outcome of a contest is an ordered partition of the set of players (a ranking) and a contest success function assigns a probability to each possible outcome as a function of players’ efforts. We define a contest success function for contests whose outcome is a ranking of any type, i.e., with any number of players at each rank. This approach is new in contest theory since the axiomatic work has exclusively been on contests with single-winner, whose outcome is a ranking with one player in the first rank and all other players in the second rank. The contest success function is characterized by pair-swap consistency, which is an axiom of independence of irrelevant alternatives and generalizes the main axiom in Skaperdas (1996).

Suggested Citation

  • Vesperoni, Alberto, 2013. "A contest success function for rankings," NEPS Working Papers 8/2013, Network of European Peace Scientists.
  • Handle: RePEc:ris:nepswp:2013_008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.europeanpeacescientists.org/8_2013.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tullock, Gordon, 1975. "On the Efficient Organization of Trials," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 745-762.
    2. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    3. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela, 2008. "The Optimal Allocation of Prizes in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 615-631, Springer.
    4. Birendra Rai & Rajiv Sarin, 2009. "Generalized contest success functions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 139-149, July.
    5. Alberto Vesperoni, 2016. "A contest success function for rankings," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 905-937, December.
    6. Cubel, María & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2016. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 92-105.
    7. Maria Arbatskaya & Hugo Mialon, 2010. "Multi-activity contests," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 43(1), pages 23-43, April.
    8. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2014. "Stochastic Choice and Consideration Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1153-1176, May.
    9. Paul Schweinzer & Ella Segev, 2012. "The optimal prize structure of symmetric Tullock contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 69-82, October.
    10. Birendra K. Rai & Rajiv Sarin, 2007. "Generalized Contest Success Functions," Jena Economics Research Papers 2007-082, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    12. Dan Kovenock & Michael R. Baye & Casper G. de Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 291-305.
    13. Konrad, Kai A. & Kovenock, Dan, 2009. "Multi-battle contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 256-274, May.
    14. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Xianwen Shi, 2007. "Contests for Status," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 338-363.
    15. Gordon Tullock, 2008. "On the efficient organization of trials," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 361-378, Springer.
    16. Baye, Michael R & Kovenock, Dan & de Vries, Casper G, 1993. "Rigging the Lobbying Process: An Application of the All-Pay Auction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 289-294, March.
    17. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Kim, Sang-Hyun, 2014. "A note on multi-winner contest mechanisms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 357-359.
    18. Amegashie, J Atsu, 2000. "Some Results on Rent-Seeking Contests with Shortlisting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(3-4), pages 245-253, December.
    19. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    20. Gaertner, Wulf, 2009. "A Primer in Social Choice Theory: Revised Edition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199565306.
    21. Mark Voorneveld, 2006. "Probabilistic Choice in Games: Properties of Rosenthal’s t-Solutions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 34(1), pages 105-121, April.
    22. Szymanski, Stefan & Valletti, Tommaso M., 2005. "Incentive effects of second prizes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 467-481, June.
    23. Green, Jerry R & Stokey, Nancy L, 1983. "A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 349-364, June.
    24. Cohen Chen & Sela Aner, 2007. "Contests with Ties," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18, December.
    25. Stergios Skaperdas, 1996. "Contest success functions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 283-290.
    26. William Thomson, 2011. "Consistency and its converse: an introduction," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 15(4), pages 257-291, December.
    27. Imhof, Lorens & Kräkel, Matthias, 2014. "Tournaments with gaps," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 211-214.
    28. Hwang, Sung-Ha, 2012. "Technology of military conflict, military spending, and war," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 226-236.
    29. Mattsson, Lars-Goran & Weibull, Jorgen W., 2002. "Probabilistic choice and procedurally bounded rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 61-78, October.
    30. Pavlo Blavatskyy, "undated". "Contest success function with the possibility of a draw: axiomatization," IEW - Working Papers 208, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    31. Johannes Münster, 2009. "Group contest success functions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 41(2), pages 345-357, November.
    32. Blavatskyy, Pavlo R., 2010. "Contest success function with the possibility of a draw: Axiomatization," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 267-276, March.
    33. Warneryd, Karl, 2001. "Replicating contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 323-327, June.
    34. Fu, Qiang & Lu, Jingfeng, 2009. "The beauty of "bigness": On optimal design of multi-winner contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 146-161, May.
    35. Fu, Qiang & Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei, 2014. "“Reverse” nested lottery contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 128-140.
    36. Jack Hirshleifer, 1989. "Conflict and rent-seeking success functions: Ratio vs. difference models of relative success," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 251-262, Springer.
    37. Maya Eden, 2006. "Optimal Ties in Contests," Discussion Paper Series dp430, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    38. Richard Cornes & Roger Hartley, 2005. "Asymmetric contests with general technologies," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(4), pages 923-946, November.
    39. Clark, Derek J & Riis, Christian, 1996. "A Multi-winner Nested Rent-Seeking Contest," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 87(1-2), pages 177-184, April.
    40. Yildirim, Huseyin, 2005. "Contests with multiple rounds," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 213-227, April.
    41. Clark, Derek J. & Riis, Christian, 1998. "Influence and the discretionary allocation of several prizes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 605-625, November.
    42. Amann, Erwin & Leininger, Wolfgang, 1996. "Asymmetric All-Pay Auctions with Incomplete Information: The Two-Player Case," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, May.
    43. Szidarovszky, Ferenc & Okuguchi, Koji, 1997. "On the Existence and Uniqueness of Pure Nash Equilibrium in Rent-Seeking Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 135-140, January.
    44. Lorens Imhof & Matthias Kräkel, 2016. "Ex post unbalanced tournaments," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(1), pages 73-98, February.
    45. Gelder, Alan & Kovenock, Dan & Sheremeta, Roman, 2015. "Behavior in All-Pay Auctions with Ties," MPRA Paper 67517, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    46. Clark, Derek J & Riis, Christian, 1998. "Competition over More Than One Prize," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 276-289, March.
    47. Kenneth J. Arrow, 1950. "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 328-328.
    48. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 1997. "An Analysis of the War of Attrition and the All-Pay Auction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 343-362, February.
    49. Beggs, S. & Cardell, S. & Hausman, J., 1981. "Assessing the potential demand for electric cars," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-19, September.
    50. Barry J. Nalebuff & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1983. "Prices and Incentives: Towards a General Theory of Compensation and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 21-43, Spring.
    51. Hao Jia, 2012. "Contests with the Probability of a Draw: A Stochastic Foundation," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 391-406, September.
    52. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Cubel, Maria, 2015. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-49, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    53. Berry, S Keith, 1993. "Rent-Seeking with Multiple Winners," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 437-443, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andonie, Costel & Kuzmics, Christoph & Rogers, Brian W., 2019. "Efficiency-based measures of inequality," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 60-69.
    2. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Cubel, Maria, 2015. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-49, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Alberto Vesperoni, 2016. "A contest success function for rankings," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 905-937, December.
    4. Ewerhart, Christian & Valkanova, Kremena, 2020. "Fictitious play in networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 182-206.
    5. Christian Ewerhart, 2015. "Contest success functions: the common-pool perspective," ECON - Working Papers 195, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Alberto Vesperoni & Anıl Yıldızparlak, 2019. "Inequality and conflict outbreak," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(1), pages 135-173, June.
    7. Cubel, María & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2016. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 92-105.
    8. Morgan, John & Sisak, Dana, 2016. "Aspiring to succeed: A model of entrepreneurship and fear of failure," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-21.
    9. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei, 2015. "Axiomatizing multi-prize nested lottery contests: A complete and strict ranking perspective," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 127-141.
    10. Jingfeng Lu & Zhewei Wang, 2016. "Axiomatization of reverse nested lottery contests," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 939-957, December.
    11. Bozbay, Irem & Vesperoni, Alberto, 2018. "A contest success function for networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 404-422.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jingfeng Lu & Zhewei Wang, 2016. "Axiomatization of reverse nested lottery contests," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 939-957, December.
    2. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei, 2015. "Axiomatizing multi-prize nested lottery contests: A complete and strict ranking perspective," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 127-141.
    3. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    5. Bozbay, Irem & Vesperoni, Alberto, 2018. "A contest success function for networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 404-422.
    6. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    7. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.
    8. Lu, Jingfeng & Shen, Bo & Wang, Zhewei, 2017. "Optimal contest design under reverse-lottery technology," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 25-35.
    9. Ewerhart, Christian, 2017. "Contests with small noise and the robustness of the all-pay auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 195-211.
    10. repec:shn:wpaper:2014-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Fu, Qiang & Wang, Xiruo & Wu, Zenan, 2021. "Multi-prize contests with risk-averse players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 513-535.
    12. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu, 2012. "Micro foundations of multi-prize lottery contests: a perspective of noisy performance ranking," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(3), pages 497-517, March.
    13. Alan Gelder & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "Behavior in All-Pay Auctions with Ties," Working Papers 15-22, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    14. Alberto Vesperoni & Anıl Yıldızparlak, 2019. "Inequality and conflict outbreak," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(1), pages 135-173, June.
    15. Fu, Qiang & Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei, 2014. "“Reverse” nested lottery contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 128-140.
    16. Cubel, María & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2016. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 92-105.
    17. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu, 2012. "The optimal multi-stage contest," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 351-382, October.
    18. Aner Sela, 2020. "Optimal allocations of prizes and punishments in Tullock contests," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(3), pages 749-771, September.
    19. Sheremeta, Roman, 2009. "Essays on Experimental Investigation of Lottery Contests," MPRA Paper 49888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Rittwik Chatterjee, 2013. "A Brief Survey of the Theory of Auction," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 2(2), pages 169-191, December.
    21. Christian Ewerhart, 2015. "Contest success functions: the common-pool perspective," ECON - Working Papers 195, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    conflict; contest; ranking; success function; axiom; probabilistic choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • 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
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:nepswp:2013_008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vincenzo Bove (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nepssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.