To fight or not to fight?

✍ Scribed by Achim Körber; Martin Kolmar

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 590 KB
• Volume: 88
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-5829
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00153239

✦ Synopsis

This paper considers the players' behaviour in an asymmetric two-player contest. When do they decide to "struggle" and when to "subjugate"? Analysing contest-success functions it is found that two crucial prerequisites for "struggle" or "war" have to be met. Thus, such an equilibrium is possible but restrictive. If a self-interested rule-setter chooses the contest-success function endogenously we show that one player will always subjugate. Applications to rent-seeking and environmental regulation are discussed. * This paper, which was presented at the Annual Conference of the European Public Choice Society 1995 in Saarbrficken, has benefited from discussions with Friedrich Breyer, Caspar deVries, Arye L. Hillman, Shmuel Nitzan and Heinrich W. Ursprung. We are also indebted to the participants of the 5th Silvaplana Workshop 1994 and an anonymous refer6e for their critical remarks on an earlier version of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies. Support by the German Research Foundation is gratefully acknowleged.