Some results on rent-seeking contests with shortlisting

We show that rent-seeking contests with shortlisting have comparative static properties which depend on the stage of the contest. By generalising the argument in Amegashie (1997), we show that well-known comparative static results in single-stage rent-seeking contests do not necessarily carry over to contests with shortlisting. The analysis suggests that policy prescriptions for reducing rent-seeking expenditures in contests with shortlisting cannot be given without taking into account the stage of the contest. We also extend the model in Amegashie (1997) to the case of unequal class sizes. Finally, the shortlisting method in Amegashie (1997) is compared with that in Clark and Riis (1996).