Generalized contest success functions

The key element of models of contest is the contest success function (CSF) which specifies the winning probabilities of agents. The existing axiomatizations of CSFs assume that contestants can make only one type of investment. This paper generalizes these axiomatizations to the case where each agent can have multiple types of investments. This allows us to provide a unified framework to extend and interpret the results of Skaperdas (Econ Theory 7:283–290, 1996) and Clark and Riis (Econ Theory 11:201–204, 1998), and rationalize some seemingly ad hoc CSFs used by applied researchers. This paper has benefitted from the comments of Aicke Hinrichs, Rene Levinsky, and two anonymous referees. We are especially thankful to one of the referees for detailed comments which have helped improve every aspect of this paper.