Abstract
The key element of models of contest is the contest success function (CSF) which specifies the winning probabilities of agents. The existing axiomatizations of CSFs assume that contestants can make only one type of investment. This paper generalizes these axiomatizations to the case where each agent can have multiple types of investments. This allows us to provide a unified framework to extend and interpret the results of Skaperdas (Econ Theory 7:283–290, 1996) and Clark and Riis (Econ Theory 11:201–204, 1998), and rationalize some seemingly ad hoc CSFs used by applied researchers.
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This paper has benefitted from the comments of Aicke Hinrichs, Rene Levinsky, and two anonymous referees. We are especially thankful to one of the referees for detailed comments which have helped improve every aspect of this paper.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Rai, B.K., Sarin, R. Generalized contest success functions. Econ Theory 40, 139–149 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-007-0328-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-007-0328-2