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Sabotage in dynamic tournaments

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  • Gürtler, Oliver
  • Münster, Johannes

Abstract

This paper studies sabotage in a dynamic tournament. Three players compete in two rounds. In the final round, a player who is leading in the race, but not yet beyond the reach of his competitors, is sabotaged more heavily. As a consequence, if all players start off at the same position, they do not work productively or sabotage at all in the first round. Thus sabotage is not only directly destructive, but also depresses incentives to work productively. If players are heterogeneous ex ante, sabotage activities in the first round may be concentrated against an underdog, contrary to findings from static tournaments.

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  • Gürtler, Oliver & Münster, Johannes, 2010. "Sabotage in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 179-190, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:46:y:2010:i:2:p:179-190
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    Cited by:

    1. Grossmann Martin & Lang Markus & Dietl Helmut, 2011. "Transitional Dynamics in a Tullock Contest with a General Cost Function," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-26, August.
    2. Gürtler, Oliver & Münster, Johannes, 2013. "Rational self-sabotage," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-4.
    3. Christian Deutscher & Bernd Frick & Oliver Gürtler & Joachim Prinz, 2013. "Sabotage in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Contestants: Empirical Evidence from the Soccer Pitch," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(4), pages 1138-1157, October.
    4. St-Pierre, Marc, 2016. "The role of inequality on effort in tournaments," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 38-52.
    5. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Anastasia Danilov & Martin G. Kocher, 2023. "The Lifecycle of Affirmative Action Policies and Its Effect on Effort and Sabotage Behavior," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 401, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Brown, Alasdair & Chowdhury, Subhasish M., 2017. "The hidden perils of affirmative action: Sabotage in handicap contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 273-284.
    7. Marc Gürtler & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "The Optimality of Heterogeneous Tournaments," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 1007-1042.
    8. Peter-J. Jost, 2021. "“The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is pure theoryâ€," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(1), pages 27-74, January.
    9. Subhasish Chowdhury & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "Sabotage in contests: a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 135-155, July.
    10. Amegashie, J. Atsu, 2012. "Productive versus destructive efforts in contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 461-468.
    11. Matthias Kräkel, 2014. "Sandbagging," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(3), pages 263-284, June.
    12. Gürtler, Oliver & Münster, Johannes, 2010. "Sabotage in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 179-190, March.
    13. Klunover, Doron, 2023. "Punishment for sabotage in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    14. Haoming Liu & Jingfeng Lu & Yohanes E. Riyanto & Zhe Wang, 2024. "Contests with multiplicative sabotage effect," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(3), pages 499-526, November.
    15. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2013. "Sabotage in Contests: An Overview," CESifo Working Paper Series 4422, CESifo.

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