Authors
Stefan Szymanski, Tommaso M Valletti
Publication date
2004
Book
40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1
Pages
633-647
Publisher
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Description
Most of the contest literature deals with first prizes; this paper deals with the optimality of second prizes. We show that, in a three-person contest where one contestant is very strong, a second prize can be optimal from the point of view of eliciting maximum effort from every contestant. We also consider the desirability of second prizes from the point of view of competitive balance, which matters for contests such as sports competitions.
Total citations
Scholar articles
S Szymanski, TM Valletti - 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, 2004