This paper studies the problem of choosing the optimal contest success functions from the view point of the contest organizers who are also contestants or not. Focusing on the two most widely studied forms of contest success functions (CSFs), determin...
This paper studies the problem of choosing the optimal contest success functions from the view point of the contest organizers who are also contestants or not. Focusing on the two most widely studied forms of contest success functions (CSFs), deterministic all-pay auctions and logit-form CSFs, we show that the equilibrium CSF is logit-form when contestants have the dual role as a contestant and a contest organizer in non-cooperative extended contests. By contrast, in extended games ? where the contest organizer is independent of contestants ? an all-pay auction is always the preferred CSF under interior optimal discrimination.