Contest Success Functions

Tournaments, conflict, and rent-seeking have been modelled as contests in which participants exert effort to increase their probability of winning a prize. A Contest Success Function (CSF) provides each player's probability of winning as a function of all player's efforts. In this paper th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomic theory Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 283 - 290
Main Author Skaperdas, Stergios
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Springer-Verlag 1996
Subjects
Axiomatization
Axioms
Competition
Economic models
Economic theory
Endowments
Probabilistic modeling
Rent seeking behavior
Utility functions
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Tournaments, conflict, and rent-seeking have been modelled as contests in which participants exert effort to increase their probability of winning a prize. A Contest Success Function (CSF) provides each player's probability of winning as a function of all player's efforts. In this paper the additive CSF employed in most contests is axiomatized, with an independence from irrelevant alternatives property as the key axiom. Two frequently used functional forms are also axiomatized: one in which winning probabilities depend on the ratio of players' efforts and the other in which winning probabilities depend on the difference in efforts.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0938-2259
1432-0479
DOI:10.1007/BF01213906