Toomas Hinnosaar (Collegio Carlo Alberto)

“Dynamic common-value contests”

Abstract

In this paper, I study dynamic common-value contests. Agents arrive over time and choose costly efforts to compete for prizes. The efforts are publicly disclosed at some points of time. This model has a wide range of applications, including rent-seeking, R&D competitions, oligopoly, and tragedy of commons. I provide a full characterization of equilibria and use it to study comparative statics, contest design, earlier-mover advantage, and large contests. I show that information about other players’ efforts plays an important role in determining the total effort and more information leads to a strictly higher total effort.