The Optimal Allocation of Punishments in Tullock Contests

Aner Sela

No 11592, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We study the role of punishments in Tullock contests with symmetric players. We first characterize the players' equilibrium strategies in a contest with either multiple identical prizes or multiple identical punishments (negative prizes). Given that a prize and a punishment have the same absolute value, we show that if the number of prizes is equal to the number of punishments and is lower (higher) than or equal to half the number of players, a designer who wishes to maximize the players' efforts will prefer to allocate punishments (prizes) over prizes (punishments). We also demonstrate that if the sum of the punishments is constrained, then in a contest without an exit option for the players, it is optimal for the designer who maximizes the players' efforts to allocate a single punishment that is equal to the punishment sum. However, in a contest with an exit option the optimal number of punishments depends on the value of the punishment sum and, in particular, the optimal number of punishments does not monotonically increase in the value of the punishment sum.

Keywords: Tullock contests; Punishments; Prizes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11592 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: THE OPTIMAL ALLOCATION OF PUNISHMENTS IN TULLOCK CONTESTS (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11592

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11592

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().