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Sabotaging Potential Rivals

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Abstract

This paper studies sabotage in a contest with non-identical players. Unlike previous papers, we consider sabotage in an elimination contest and allow contestants to sabotage a potential or future rival. It turns out that for a certain seeding of players there is a pure-strategy equilibrium in which only the most able contestant engages in sabotage while less able contestants do not. The most able contestant may therefore prefer a situation where sabotage is allowed to one where sabotage is not allowed. For another seeding of players, there is a unique equilibrium in which none of the players invests in sabotage.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada, N1G 2W1

    J. Atsu Amegashie

  2. Department of Economics, University of Munich, Ludwigstr. 28, Vgb., III, 80539, Munich, Germany

    Marco Runkel

Authors
  1. J. Atsu Amegashie
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  2. Marco Runkel
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Correspondence to Marco Runkel.

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Amegashie, J.A., Runkel, M. Sabotaging Potential Rivals. Soc Choice Welfare 28, 143–162 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-006-0157-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-006-0157-4

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