Some Results on Rent-Seeking Contests with Shortlisting

We show that rent-seeking contests with shortlistinghave comparative static properties which depend on thestage of the contest. By generalising the argument inAmegashie (1997), we show that well-known comparativestatic results in single-stage rent-seeking contestsdo not necessarily carry over to contests withshortlisting. The analysis suggeststhat policy prescriptions for reducing rent-seekingexpenditures in contests with shortlisting cannot begiven without taking into account the stage of thecontest. We also extend the model in Amegashie (1997)to the case of unequal class sizes. Finally, theshortlisting method in Amegashie (1997) is comparedwith that in Clark and Riis (1996).