IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea03/21938.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Performance And Welfare Effects Of Tournament Contracts: Some Experimental Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Wu, Steven Y.
  • Roe, Brian E.

Abstract

Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournament and fixed standards contracts. Our findings suggest that economic agents are generally better off under fixed standard contracts unless they face substantial common shocks. Administrators of contracts (principals) also tend to be better off under fixed standard contracts for moderate to small common shocks. Efficiency wise, agents tend to exert higher effort under fixed standard contracts. Moreover, effort under tournaments appears to be declining in the variance of the common shock. Our results suggest that a ban on tournament contracts may generally be better off for both growers and processors except in cases where common shocks are large.

Suggested Citation

  • Wu, Steven Y. & Roe, Brian E., 2003. "Performance And Welfare Effects Of Tournament Contracts: Some Experimental Evidence," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 21938, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea03:21938
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.21938
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/21938/files/sp03wu02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.21938?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cason, Timothy N. & Plott, Charles R., 1996. "EPA's New Emissions Trading Mechanism: A Laboratory Evaluation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 133-160, March.
    2. Bull, Clive & Schotter, Andrew & Weigelt, Keith, 1987. "Tournaments and Piece Rates: An Experimental Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 1-33, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Friedman,Daniel & Sunder,Shyam, 1994. "Experimental Methods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521456821, November.
    5. Ledyard, John O., "undated". "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," Working Papers 861, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    6. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    7. Hans K. Hvide, 2002. "Tournament Rewards and Risk Taking," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 877-898, October.
    8. Andrew Schotter & Keith Weigelt, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 511-539.
    9. Roe, Brian E. & Wu, Steven Y., 2003. "The Welfare Effects Of Banning Tournaments When Commitment Is Impossible: Some Results From The Broiler Sector," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22151, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    10. Eckel, Catherine & Lutz, Nancy, 2003. "Introduction: What Role Can Experiments Play in Research on Regulation?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 103-107, March.
    11. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    12. Armando Levy & Tomislav Vukina, 2004. "The League Composition Effect in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Players: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 353-378, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    2. Wu, Steven Y. & Roe, Brian E., 2004. "Tournaments, Risk Perceptions, And Fairness," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20154, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Arjan Non & Willem Verbeke, 2015. "The Effects of Prize Spread and Noise in Elimination Tournaments: A Natural Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 521-569.
    4. Zhen Wang & Tomislav Vukina, 2017. "Welfare effects of payment truncation in piece rate tournaments," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 219-249, April.
    5. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    6. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    7. Hammond, Robert G. & Zheng, Xiaoyong, 2013. "Heterogeneity in tournaments with incomplete information: An experimental analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 248-260.
    8. Kellner, Christian, 2015. "Tournaments as a response to ambiguity aversion in incentive contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 627-655.
    9. Wu, Steven Y. & Roe, Brian E. & Sporleder, Thomas L. & Nazaryan, Natalie, 2005. "An Experimental Investigation Of Alternative Incentive Schemes With Heterogeneous Agents," Working Papers 28318, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    10. Wu, Steven & Roe, Brian & Sporleder, Thomas, 2006. "Mixed Tournaments, Common Shocks, and Disincentives: An Experimental Study," MPRA Paper 21, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Ruchala, Gabriele K., 2008. "Relative rewards within team-based compensation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 141-167, April.
    12. Do, Truc & Zhang, Huai & Zuo, Luo, 2022. "Rocking the boat: How relative performance evaluation affects corporate risk taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1).
    13. Kräkel, Matthias & Nieken, Petra & Przemeck, Judith, 2014. "Risk taking and investing in electoral competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 98-120.
    14. Donald Vandegrift & Abdullah Yavas & Paul Brown, 2007. "Incentive effects and overcrowding in tournaments: An experimental analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(4), pages 345-368, December.
    15. Wu, Steven Y. & Nazaryan, Natalie & Roe, Brian E. & Sporleder, Thomas L., 2004. "Behavioral and Welfare Effects of Tournaments and Fixed Performance Standard Contracts with Heterogeneous Agents: Some Experimental Evidence," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20103, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Agranov, Marina & Tergiman, Chloe, 2013. "Incentives and compensation schemes: An experimental study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 238-247.
    17. Kräkel, Matthias, 2005. "Emotions and the Optimality of Unfair Tournaments," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 45, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    18. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "Executive Compensation, Strategic Competition, and Relative Performance Evaluation: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1999-2043, December.
    19. Tor Eriksson & Sabrina Teyssier & Marie‐Claire Villeval, 2009. "Self‐Selection And The Efficiency Of Tournaments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 530-548, July.
    20. Bernd Irlenbusch, 2006. "Experimental perspectives on incentives in organisations," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 14(1), pages 1-24, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agribusiness;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:aaea03:21938. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.