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Abstract: We study Tullock contests in which the common value of the price is uncertain. We provide a simple framework in which general information structures can be easily described, and equilibrium can be easily characterized. This characterization allows us to obtain interesting results about how information influences players’ equilibrium efforts and payoffs. When the cost of effort exhibits sufficiently large (small) diseconomies of scale, in contests with symmetric information expected effort decreases (increases) as players become better informed, while in two-player contests with asymmetric information, a player with information advantage exerts less (more) effort, in expectation, than his opponent. In classic Tullock contests, when players have symmetric information the equilibrium expected effort and payoff are independent of the information available to the players. When information is asymmetric, a player’s information advantage is rewarded. Moreover, while in a two-player contest both players exert the same expected effort regardless of their information, expected effort is smaller when one player has information advantage than when both players have the same information; interestingly, a better informed player wins the prize less frequently.
