Imitative Learning in Tullock Contests: Does Overdissipation Prevail in the Long Run?

This paper investigates a long-run equilibrium of the Tullock contest using an evolutionary game-theoretic approach. The finite-population evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) yields overdissipation of rent when there are increasing returns to expenditure. However, imitative behavior, considered to be a source of the evolutionary dynamics behind the ESS, is implausible because individual rationality is not always satisfied. In this paper, we attempt to specify such implicit imitative behavior and construct explicit evolutionary dynamics. Under our plausible imitation rule, we show that full dissipation may prevail in the long run as long as there are increasing returns.