Two-stage rent-seeking contests with carryovers

We examine a two-stage contest in which players in two groups compete nonco operatively to win a rent. In the first stage, each group selects a finalis t. The two finalists compete for the rent in the second stage. First-stage efforts are carried over to the second stage in the sense that they are par tly effective in the second stage as well. We show the following. In the ca se of player-specific carryovers, the rent-dissipation rate increases in th e carryover rate. With the carryover rate equal to one, the rent is fully d issipated. In the case of group-specific carryovers, however, the rent-diss ipation rate is independent of the carryover rate.