Distributional Competition

I study symmetric competitions in which each player chooses an arbitrary distribution over a one-dimensional performance index, subject to a convex cost. I establish existence of a symmetric equilibrium, document various properties it must possess, and provide a characterization via the first-order approach. Manifold applications–to R&D competition, oligopolistic competition with product design, and rank-order contests–follow.

💡 Research Summary

The paper introduces a novel class of games called “distributional competition,” in which each of n ≥ 2 symmetric players selects an arbitrary probability distribution over a one‑dimensional performance index X∈