Tullock Contests with Asymmetric Information

Under standard assumptions about players’ cost functions, we show that a Tullock contest with asymmetric information has a pure strategy equilibrium. Next we study Tullock contests in which players have a common value and a common state-independent linear cost function. A two-player contest in which one player has an information advantage has a unique equilibrium. In equilibrium both players exert the same expected effort, and although the player with an information advantage wins the prize with probability less than one-half, his payoff is greater or equal to that of his opponent. When there are more than two players in the contest, having information advantage leads to higher payoff, but the other properties of equilibrium no longer hold.

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