Economic Theory

, Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 283–290 | Cite as

Contest success functions

  • Stergios Skaperdas
Research Articles
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Revised:

Summary

Tournaments, conflict, and rent-seeking have been modelled as contests in which participants exert effort to increase their probability of winning a prize. A Contest Success Function (CSF) provides each player's probability of winning as a function of all players' efforts. In this paper the additive CSF employed in most contests is axiomatized, with an independence from irrelevant alternatives property as the key axiom. Two frequently used functional forms are also axiomatized: one in which winning probabilities depend on the ratio of players' efforts and the other in which winning probabilities depend on the difference in efforts.

JEL Classification Numbers

C70 D72 D74 
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 1996

Authors and Affiliations

  • Stergios Skaperdas
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of EconomicsUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineUSA

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