On optimal head starts in all-pay auctions

Abstract

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Heterogeneity, Leveling the Playing Field, and Affirmative Action in Contests

“…-Complete information: In a complete information environment, Seel and Wasser (2014) show that a moderate level of heterogeneity is desirable to a designer who maximizes a weighted sum of the expected highest effort and the expected average effort.…”

Optimal favoritism in all-pay auctions and lottery contests

“…4 Moreover, our study contributes to the recent interest in the analysis of head starts in different competitive situations, comp. Kirkegaard (2012), [23], Seel and Wasser (2014), [35], Li and Yu (2012), [28], Segev and Sela (2014), [36], Konrad (2002), [25], as well as Imhof and Kräkel (2016), [21]. However, all of the mentioned studies (as most of the literature) are either restricted to the two-player case or focus exclusively on only one of the two instruments.…”

On Optimal Favoritism in Asymmetric Competitions

“…This insight echoes the rationale for the research recognition programs, where young researchers obtain head-starts (Kirkegaard, 2012). Besides studies mentioned above, this line of the literature on favoritism also includes Nti (2004), Sahuguet (2006), Tsoulouhas et al (2007), Franke et al (2013), Seel & Wasser (2014), Franke et al (2018), and Zhu (2019) among many others. Unlike our paper which allows nonlinear favoritism rules, the favoritism in these existing studies focuses on linear instruments, including head start (an additive bias on a player's performance/effort) and handicap (a multiplicative bias on a player's performance/effort).…”