The theory of contests looks at a number of competitions, from advertising to sports to war, in which any energy expended or money spent by the participants is unrecoverable regardless of the outcome. This book provides an introduction to the contest theory literature and describes the common properties and laws that govern these contests.

Preface and Acknowledgements ; 1. An Introduction to Contests ; 1.1 A definition ; 1.2 Examples ; 1.3 The structure of the book ; 2. Types of Contests ; 2.1 The first-price all-pay auction ; 2.2 Additive noise ; 2.3 The Tullock contest ; 2.4 Experimental evidence ; 2.5 Evolutionary success ; 2.6 Summary ; 3. Timing and Participation ; 3.1 Endogenous timing ; 3.2 Voluntary participation ; 3.3 Exclusion ; 3.4 Delegation ; 3.5 Summary ; 4. Cost and prize structure ; 4.1 Choice of cost ; 4.2 The structure of prizes ; 4.3 Endogenous prizes ; 4.4 Summary ; 5. Externalities ; 5.1 State lotteries and financing public goods ; 5.2 A loser's preference about who wins ; 5.3 Personnel economics and sabotage ; 5.4 Information externalities and campaigning ; 5.5 Inter-group contests and free riding ; 5.6 Conclusions ; 6. Nested contests ; 6.1 Exogenous sharing rules ; 6.2 The choice of sharing rules ; 6.3 Intra-group conflict ; 6.4 A strategy of analysis of nested contests ; 7. Alliances ; 7.1 The alliance formation puzzle ; 7.2 Solutions to the alliance formation puzzle ; 7.3 Summary ; 8. Dynamic battles ; 8.1 The elimination tournament ; 8.2 The race ; 8.3 The tug-of-war ; 8.4 Iterating incumbency fights ; 8.5 Endogenous fighting ; 8.6 Summary: the discouragement effect ; 9. Conclusions

First comprehensive survey on contest theory Written by top name in the field Relevant to a number of fields including labour economics, law and economics, political science, public choice, and public economics

Kai A. Konrad completed his Ph.D. in Economics in 1990 at the University of Munich. He has held teaching and research positions at the universities of Munich, Bonn and Bergen and at the University of California, Irvine. He currently holds a chair in Public Finance at the Free University of Berlin and is also a Director of a research unit at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). He is a Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics and on the editorial boards of several other journals. His research interests are focused on contests, conflict and tournaments in various institutional contexts.

First comprehensive survey on contest theory Written by top name in the field Relevant to a number of fields including labour economics, law and economics, political science, public choice, and public economics