CIREQ-Concordia Seminar
joint with the Department of Economics, Concordia University
room H-1154 (Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd ouest, 11th floor)
Organizer : Ming Li (Concordia U.)
ABSTRACT : A large and unifying family of noisy or non-deterministic contests is proposed. The defining characteristic is that the marginal return to effort exhibits a log-supermodularity property. The model nests both the usual rank-order tournament and the microfoundations for the Tullock contest. With homogeneous technologies, strategic incentives and comparative statics are qualitatively similar across the entire family. Robust comparative statics include collective discouragement and disparity effects. The effects of precommitment are also robust. Moreover, the model provides a framework for studying the role of heterogeneous technologies. Sufficient conditions are provided under which the comparative statics and their policy implications are preserved.
