Resumen de Diference-form group contests
María Cubel, Santiago Sánchez Pagés
Contests are situations in which a set of agents compete for a valu- able object, rent or award. The present paper analyzes di¤erence-form group contests, that is, contests fought among groups and where their probability of victory depends on the di¤erence of their e¤ective e¤orts.
We make three main contributions. First, we o¤er an axiomatization of di¤erence-form contests success functions. Its key axiom is a Transitiv- ity axiom, stating that the di¤erence in winning probabilities between two contenders when .ghting each other must be the same as when they engage in another contest. Second, we show that the non-existence of pure-strategy equilibria and the monopolization results obtained in previ- ous analysis of di¤erence-form contests rest critically on the assumption of a linear cost of e¤ort. Under exponential costs, we show that pure strategy equilibria exist in a large set of cases and that more than one group can expend positive e¤ort in equilibrium. Finally, we show that inequality of valuations of victory within groups hinders their chances of prevailing in the contest. If possible; members may .nd bene.cial to engage in progressive redistribution within ther group.
