Sequential All-Pay Auctions with Head Starts

We study a sequential all-pay auction where heterogeneous contestants are privately informed about a parameter (ability) that affects their cost of effort. In the case of two contestants, contestant 1 (the first mover) makes an effort in the first period, while contestant 2 (the second mover) observes the effort of contestant 1 and then makes an effort in the second period. Contestant 2 wins the contest if his effort is larger than or equal to the effort of contestant 1; otherwise, contestant 1 wins. This model is then generalized to any number of contestants where in each period of the contest, 1 /