Suppression and Empowerment in Contests
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866910258287345664 |
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| author | Matros, Alexander Sorokin, Constantine |
| author_facet | Matros, Alexander Sorokin, Constantine |
| contents | We study a tractable two-player contest built on a truncated cubic contest success function. Its defining feature is a strategic-feedback parameter whose sign determines whether a leading player's effort lowers (suppression) or raises (empowerment) the marginal effectiveness of the trailing player's effort; standard lottery contests impose suppression by construction. The benchmark yields closed-form mixed equilibria under complete information and a unique affine Bayesian Nash equilibrium under IID private information. Expected effort is typically single-peaked in the feedback parameter. Uncertainty lowers effort under suppression but raises it under empowerment, and the same asymmetry governs information disclosure: an effort-maximizing designer withholds information under suppression and discloses fully under empowerment. Several familiar conclusions of contest theory turn out to reflect suppressive benchmarks rather than contests as such. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_26639 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Suppression and Empowerment in Contests Matros, Alexander Sorokin, Constantine Theoretical Economics We study a tractable two-player contest built on a truncated cubic contest success function. Its defining feature is a strategic-feedback parameter whose sign determines whether a leading player's effort lowers (suppression) or raises (empowerment) the marginal effectiveness of the trailing player's effort; standard lottery contests impose suppression by construction. The benchmark yields closed-form mixed equilibria under complete information and a unique affine Bayesian Nash equilibrium under IID private information. Expected effort is typically single-peaked in the feedback parameter. Uncertainty lowers effort under suppression but raises it under empowerment, and the same asymmetry governs information disclosure: an effort-maximizing designer withholds information under suppression and discloses fully under empowerment. Several familiar conclusions of contest theory turn out to reflect suppressive benchmarks rather than contests as such. |
| title | Suppression and Empowerment in Contests |
| topic | Theoretical Economics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26639 |