The Lifeboat Problem

Dan Kovenock and Kai Konrad

No 7424, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We study an all-pay contest with multiple identical prizes ("lifeboat seats"). Prizes are partitioned into subsets of prizes ("lifeboats"). Players play a two-stage game. First, each player chooses an element of the partition ("a lifeboat"). Then each player competes for a prize in the subset chosen ("a seat"). We characterize and compare the subgame perfect equilibria in which all players employ pure strategies or all players play identical mixed strategies in the first stage. We find that the partitioning of prizes allows for coordination failure among players when they play nondegenerate mixed strategies and this can shelter rents and reduce rent dissipation compared to some of the less efficient pure strategy equilibria.

Keywords: All-pay contest; Multiple prizes; Rent dissipation; Lifeboat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-gth
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7424 (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:
Journal Article: The lifeboat problem (2012)
Working Paper: The lifeboat problem (2012)
Working Paper: The Lifeboat Problem (2011)
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:7424

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7424

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 ().