An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions

Maria Cubel and Santiago Sánchez-Pagés

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2016, vol. 131, issue PA, 92-105

Abstract: This paper presents an axiomatic characterization of difference-form contests, that is, contests where agents’ probability of victory depends on the difference of their effective efforts. This axiomatization rests on a pairwise comparison axiom that relates the winning probabilities of any pair of participants to their winning probabilities in a contest between the two of them. The resulting difference-form contest success function overcomes some of the drawbacks of the widely-used ratio-form. Contrary to other difference-form functions, the family we charaterize here can be scale invariant and have a positive elasticity of augmentation. By clarifying the properties of this family of contest success functions, this axiomatization can help researchers to find the functional form better suited to their application of interest.

Keywords: Contests; Groups; Contest success function; Axioms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 D72 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268116301780
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions (2015)
Working Paper: An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions (2015)
Working Paper: An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions (2015)
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:eee:jeborg:v:131:y:2016:i:pa:p:92-105

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.08.011

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().