IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v145y2010i6p2471-2482.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Selectivity in hierarchical social systems

Author

Listed:
  • Garcia-Martinez, Jose A.

Abstract

We consider a selection process and a hierarchical institution in a dynamic model as in Harrington (1998) [4], where agents are "climbing the pyramid" in a rank-order contest based on the "up or out" policy. Agents are matched in pairs to compete, and each pair faces a particular environment. They are ranked according to the quality of their performances in this particular environment, and a fraction of the highest ranked agents are promoted. The size of this fraction characterizes the selectivity of the process, and we distinguish between local and global selectivity. We study the role of the degree of selectivity in the dynamic process where types of agent differ in their expected performances. Surprisingly, we find that an increase in the selectivity of the process can be detrimental to the agents with the highest expected performances and can increase the survivability of the lesser performing. However, if the selectivity decreases, the only survivor is the agent with the highest expected performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Garcia-Martinez, Jose A., 2010. "Selectivity in hierarchical social systems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2471-2482, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:145:y:2010:i:6:p:2471-2482
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(10)00139-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Joseph E. Harrington Jr., 2000. "Progressive ambition, electoral selection, and the creation of ideologues," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 13-23, March.
    3. Harrington, Joseph Jr., 1999. "The Equilibrium Level of Rigidity in a Hierarchy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 189-202, August.
    4. Alos-Ferrer, Carlos, 1999. "Dynamical Systems with a Continuum of Randomly Matched Agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 245-267, June.
    5. Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2000. "Unfolding Social Hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 177-203, February.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    7. Joseph E. Harrington & Jr., 1999. "Rigidity of Social Systems," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 40-64, February.
    8. Harrington, Joseph E, Jr, 1998. "The Social Selection of Flexible and Rigid Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 63-82, March.
    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. Garcia-Martinez, Jose A., 2012. "An Unexpected Role of Local Selectivity in Social Promotion," MPRA Paper 36324, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. José A. García-Martínez, 2018. "A simple dynamic contest with a parameterized strength of competition," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-332, August.
    3. Jiabin Wu, 2017. "Social Hierarchy and the Evolution of Behavior," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(04), pages 1-16, December.

    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. José A. García-Martínez, 2018. "A simple dynamic contest with a parameterized strength of competition," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-332, August.
    2. Garcia-Martinez, Jose A., 2012. "An Unexpected Role of Local Selectivity in Social Promotion," MPRA Paper 36324, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jose A. Garcia-Martinez, 2010. "The Role of Selectivity in Hierarchical Social Systems," Working Papers 2010-05, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    4. Callander, Steven & Wilkie, Simon, 2007. "Lies, damned lies, and political campaigns," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 262-286, August.
    5. José A. García Martínez, 2005. "Selection And Efficiency In Hierarchical Social Systems," Working Papers. Serie AD 2005-35, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    6. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    7. Tom Coupé & Valérie Smeets & Frédéric Warzynski, 2006. "Incentives, Sorting and Productivity along the Career: Evidence from a Sample of Top Economists," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 137-167, April.
    8. Lackner, Mario & Stracke, Rudi & Sunde, Uwe & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2015. "Are Competitors Forward Looking in Strategic Interactions? Evidence from the Field," Economics Series 319, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    9. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    10. Ahrens, Jan-Philipp & Landmann, Andreas & Woywode, Michael, 2015. "Gender preferences in the CEO successions of family firms: Family characteristics and human capital of the successor," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 86-103.
    11. Bingley, P. & Eriksson, T, 2001. "Pay Spread and Skewness. Employee Effort and Firm Productivity," Papers 01-2, Aarhus School of Business - Department of Economics.
    12. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    13. Segev, Ella & Sela, Aner, 2014. "Sequential all-pay auctions with noisy outputs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 251-261.
    14. Gil S Epstein, 2012. "Employer’s information and promotion-seeking activities," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 21-32.
    15. repec:cgr:cgsser:03-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sami Dakhlia & Paul Pecorino, 2006. "Rent-seeking with scarce talent: A model of preemptive hiring," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 475-486, December.
    17. Gershkov, Alex & Perry, Motty, 2009. "Tournaments with midterm reviews," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 162-190, May.
    18. Moldovanu, Benny & Sela, Aner, 2006. "Contest architecture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 70-96, January.
    19. Matthias Kräkel, 2014. "Optimal seedings in elimination tournaments revisited," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 77-91, April.
    20. Talavera, Oleksandr & Yin, Shuxing & Zhang, Mao, 2021. "Tournament incentives, age diversity and firm performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 139-162.
    21. Galasso, Alberto & Mitchell, Matthew & Virag, Gabor, 2018. "A theory of grand innovation prizes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 343-362.

    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:jetheo:v:145:y:2010:i:6:p:2471-2482. 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/inca/622869 .

    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.