The Reverse War of Attrition
27 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2016 Last revised: 19 Jun 2016
Date Written: February 12, 2016
Abstract
This paper analyzes the problem of a contest designer who chooses a starting time and a deadline of the contest to maximize discounted total effort by the contestants. Each contestant secretly decides how much effort to exert between the starting time and the deadline. At the deadline, the contestant who exerted most effort wins a prize, which consists of the endowment of the designer and collected interest.
The contest has a unique Nash equilibrium. In the main model, the designer should announce the contest immediately with a short deadline to promote intense competition. I analyze how the optimal starting time and deadline change for a variable contest prize, different types of asymmetries, a Tullock lottery contest success function and a different goal function of the designer.
Keywords: war of attrition, silent timing game, deadline
JEL Classification: C72, D82
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation