Gama, Adriana and Rietzke, David Michael (2017) Robust Comparative Statics in Contests. Working Paper. Lancaster University, Department of Economics, Lancaster.
Abstract
We drive several robust comparative statics results in a contest under minimal restrictions on the primitives. Some of our findings generalize existing results, while others clarify the relevance of structure commonly imposed in the literature. Contrasting prior results, we show, via an example, that equilibrium payoffs may be (strictly) decreasing in the value of the prize. We also obtain a condition under which equilibrium aggregate activity decreases in the number of players. Finally, we shed light on equilibrium existence and uniqueness. Differentiating this study from past work is our reliance on lattice-theoretic techniques, which allows for a more general approach.