Econometrica: Mar, 2016, Volume 84, Issue 2

Large Contests

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA11696
p. 835-854

Wojciech Olszewski, Ron Siegel

We consider contests with many, possibly heterogeneous, players and prizes, and show that the equilibrium outcomes of such contests are approximated by the outcomes of mechanisms that implement the assortative allocation in an environment with a single agent that has a continuum of possible types. This makes it possible to easily approximate the equilibria of contests whose exact equilibrium characterization is complicated, as well as the equilibria of contests for which there is no existing equilibrium characterization.

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