IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v125y2014i3p411-414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The incentive effect of coarsening the competition structure in a tournament

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Sam-Ho

Abstract

The incentive effect of coarsening the competition structure in a tournament is studied. By coarsening the competition structure, we mean that coarser performance measure is used while finer information is available. Examples include letter grades or grade classes when finer numeric grades are available. Coarsening the competition structure has two countervailing incentive effects. While it reduces the likelihood that marginal effort changes the result, the reward change will be bigger once the result is changed. We provide a sufficient condition on the performance distribution for the reduction of work incentive by coarsening; log-concavity of the density.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Sam-Ho, 2014. "The incentive effect of coarsening the competition structure in a tournament," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 411-414.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:125:y:2014:i:3:p:411-414
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.09.028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514003723
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2014.09.028?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    3. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela, 2008. "The Optimal Allocation of Prizes in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 615-631, Springer.
    4. Moldovanu, Benny & Sela, Aner, 2006. "Contest architecture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 70-96, January.
    5. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Xianwen Shi, 2007. "Contests for Status," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 338-363.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    7. Jimmy Chan & Erik Eyster, 2003. "Does Banning Affirmative Action Lower College Student Quality?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 858-872, June.
    8. Green, Jerry R & Stokey, Nancy L, 1983. "A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 349-364, June.
    9. Dubey, Pradeep & Geanakoplos, John, 2010. "Grading exams: 100,99,98,... or A,B,C?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 72-94, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drugov, Mikhail & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2020. "Tournament rewards and heavy tails," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Chirok Han & Changhui Kang & Sam-Ho Lee, 2016. "Measuring Effort Incentives In A Tournament With Many Participants: Theory And Application," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1240-1250, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chirok Han & Changhui Kang & Sam-Ho Lee, 2016. "Measuring Effort Incentives In A Tournament With Many Participants: Theory And Application," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1240-1250, April.
    2. Kaplan, Todd R. & Zamir, Shmuel, 2015. "Advances in Auctions," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    3. Shanglyu Deng & Hanming Fang & Qiang Fu & Zenan Wu, 2023. "Information Favoritism and Scoring Bias in Contests," PIER Working Paper Archive 23-002, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi, 2009. "The Allocation of a Prize," Department of Economics Working Papers 09-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    5. Gershkov, Alex & Perry, Motty, 2009. "Tournaments with midterm reviews," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 162-190, May.
    6. Minchuk, Yizhaq & Sela, Aner, 2014. "All-pay auctions with certain and uncertain prizes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 130-134.
    7. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Xianwen Shi, 2012. "Carrots And Sticks: Prizes And Punishments In Contests," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 453-462, April.
    8. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.
    9. Aner Sela & Maya Amiad, 2016. "The Optimal Allocation Of Punishments In Tullock Contests," Working Papers 1613, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    10. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sah, 2012. "The Allocation of a Prize (Expanded)," Department of Economics Working Papers 12-02, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    11. Dubey, Pradeep, 2013. "The role of information in contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 160-163.
    12. Drugov, Mikhail & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2020. "Tournament rewards and heavy tails," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    13. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi, 2016. "Optimal Prizes," Department of Economics Working Papers 16-03, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    14. Alexander Matros, 2006. "Elimination Tournaments where Players Have Fixed Resources," Working Paper 205, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2006.
    15. Pradeep Dubey & John Geanakoplos, 2016. "Money and Status: How Best to Incentivize Work," Department of Economics Working Papers 16-02, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    16. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    17. Konrad, Kai A., 2014. "Search duplication in research and design spaces — Exploring the role of local competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 222-228.
    18. Münster, Johannes, 2006. "Selection Tournaments, Sabotage, and Participation," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 118, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    19. Dmitry Ryvkin & Andreas Ortmann, 2008. "The Predictive Power of Three Prominent Tournament Formats," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 492-504, March.
    20. Linnemer, Laurent & Visser, Michael, 2016. "Self-selection in tournaments: The case of chess players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 213-234.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:125:y:2014:i:3:p:411-414. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.