Top guns may not fire: Best-shot group contests with group-specific public good prizes

Subhasish Chowdhury, Dongryul Lee and Roman Sheremeta

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2013, vol. 92, issue C, 94-103

Abstract: We analyze a group contest in which n groups compete to win a group-specific public good prize. Group sizes can be different and any player may value the prize differently within and across groups. Players exert costly efforts simultaneously and independently. Only the highest effort (the best-shot) within each group represents the group effort that determines the winning group. We fully characterize the set of equilibria and show that in any equilibrium at most one player in each group exerts strictly positive effort. There always exists an equilibrium in which only the highest value player in each active group exerts strictly positive effort. However, perverse equilibria may exist in which the highest value players completely free-ride on others by exerting no effort. We provide conditions under which the set of equilibria can be restricted and discuss contest design implications.

Keywords: Best-shot technology; Group contest; Group-specific public goods; Free-riding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D70 D72 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Top Guns May Not Fire: Best-Shot Group Contests with Group-Specific Public Good Prizes (2013)
Working Paper: Top Guns May Not Fire: Best-Shot Group Contests with Group-Specific Public Good Prizes (2013)
Working Paper: Top Guns May Not Fire: Best-Shot Group Contests with Group-Specific Public Good Prizes (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:92:y:2013:i:c:p:94-103

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.04.012

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