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Women and Competition in Elimination Tournaments: Evidence from Professional Tennis Data

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Author Info
Thierry Lallemand () (Free University of Brussels, DULBEA and CPC)
Robert Plasman () (Free University of Brussels, DULBEA)
François Rycx () (Free University of Brussels, DULBEA and IZA Bonn)

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Abstract

This paper examines how professional female tennisplayers react to: i) prize incentives and ii) heterogeneity in ex ante players’ abilities. It is found that a larger prize spread encourages women to increase effort, even when controlling for many tournament and player characteristics. Further results indicate that uneven contests lead favourites to win more games and underdogs to be less performing. They also show that the performance differential between players increases with the ranking differential. These findings suggest that the outcome of a match is more linked to players’ abilities than to players’ incentives to adjust effort according to success chances.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1843.

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Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1843

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Related research
Keywords: sports economics; tournaments; incentives; performance; women;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executive Compensation

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Edward P. Lazear & Sherwin Rosen, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Michael Maloney & Kristina Terkun, 2002. "Road Warrior Booty: Prize Structures in Motorcycle Racing," Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 1(1), pages 1015-1015. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Heckman, James J, 1979. "Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 153-61, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Sunde, Uwe, 2003. "Potential, Prizes and Performance: Testing Tournament Theory with Professional Tennis Data," IZA Discussion Papers 947, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  5. Stefan Szymanski, 2003. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1137-1187, December.
  6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-15, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Abrevaya, Jason, 2002. "Ladder tournaments and underdogs: lessons from professional bowling," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 87-101, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Michael L. Bognanno, 1990. "The incentive effects of tournaments revisited: Evidence from the European PGA tour," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 43(3), pages 74-88, February.
  9. Sue Fernie & David Metcalf, 1999. "It's Not What You Pay it's the Way that You Pay it and that's What Gets Results: Jockeys' Pay and Performance," LABOUR, CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, vol. 13(2), pages 385-411, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance In Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and Competition at a Young Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 377-381, May. [Downloadable!]
  13. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Bognanno, Michael L, 1990. "Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1307-24, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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