IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cra/wpaper/2007-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"It's the Challenger, Stupid!": Elections and the Theory of Rank-Order Tournaments

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Funk
  • Reiner Eichenberger

Abstract

Democratic elections look very much like a contest where voters have to compare the candidates according to an ordinal ranking. Nevertheless, the theory of tournaments has not yet been applied to Political Economics. Therefore, we deploy tournament models to analyse elections. The main difference between tournaments in a firm and election tournaments is a systematic asymmetry between the contestants: whereas the voters have plenty of information about the incumbent, they hardly know anything about the challenger. Unlike most models of political accountability that model the challenger as a standard, we focus on the specific role of the challenger and model him as a random draw with a given expected ability. Consequently the ordinal ranking of the candidates contains plenty of noise, which weakens the incumbent's incentives to exert e€ort. After the presentation of the basic model, several extensions of the tournament theme in politics are explored. The model gives a fresh insight into very important aspects of politics, such as sabotage and selection, and it identifies exective policy reforms, e.g. the deregulation of politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Funk & Reiner Eichenberger, 2007. ""It's the Challenger, Stupid!": Elections and the Theory of Rank-Order Tournaments," CREMA Working Paper Series 2007-20, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    • Handle: RePEc:cra:wpaper:2007-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/papers/2007-20.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/abstracts/2007-20.htm
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    3. Besley, Tim & Persson, Torsten & Sturm, Daniel, 2005. "Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 5138, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Berggren, Niclas & Jordahl, Henrik & Poutvaara, Panu, 2006. "The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success," IZA Discussion Papers 2311, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 2003. "Bureaucrats or Politicians?," Working Papers 238, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    7. Meyer, Margaret A & Vickers, John, 1997. "Performance Comparisons and Dynamic Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(3), pages 547-581, June.
    8. Skaperdas, Stergios & Grofman, Bernard, 1995. "Modeling Negative Campaigning," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(1), pages 49-61, March.
    9. Konrad, Kai A, 2000. "Sabotage in Rent-Seeking Contests," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 155-165, April.
    10. Kong-Pin Chen, 2003. "Sabotage in Promotion Tournaments," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 119-140, April.
    11. Harbring, Christine & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2004. "Incentives in Tournaments with Endogenous Prize Selection," IZA Discussion Papers 1340, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    13. Snyder, James M, 1989. "Election Goals and the Allocation of Campaign Resources," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 637-660, May.
    14. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    15. Cooter, Robert D., 2002. "Who Gets On Top in Democracy? Elections as Filters," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt4q258892, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    16. Richard L. Fullerton & R. Preston McAfee, 1999. "Auctioning Entry into Tournaments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 573-605, June.
    17. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, October.
    18. O'Keeffe, Mary & Viscusi, W Kip & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1984. "Economic Contests: Comparative Reward Schemes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 27-56, January.
    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. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Cedric Duvinage & Peter-J. Jost, 2019. "The Role of Referees in Professional Sports Contests," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(8), pages 1014-1050, December.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2019. "A general framework for studying contests," MPRA Paper 97363, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Subhasish Chowdhury & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "Sabotage in contests: a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 135-155, July.
    7. Kräkel, Matthias & Schöttner, Anja, 2010. "Technology Choice and Incentives under Relative Performance Schemes," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 10/2010, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    8. Cason, Timothy N. & Masters, William A. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2020. "Winner-take-all and proportional-prize contests: Theory and experimental results," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 314-327.
    9. Kräkel, Matthias & Schöttner, Anja, 2010. "Technology choice, relative performance pay, and worker heterogeneity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 748-758, December.
    10. Tor Eriksson & Sabrina Teyssier & Marie Claire Villeval, 2006. "Effort Self-Selection and the Efficiency of Tournaments," Post-Print halshs-00142876, HAL.
    11. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2018. "Conflict and Competition over Multi-Issues," Working Papers 2072/306550, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    12. Doron Klunover, 2020. "Nice guys don't always finish last: succeeding in hierarchical organizations," Papers 2007.04435, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2020.
    13. Áron Kiss, 2009. "Coalition politics and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 413-428, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Gürtler, Oliver & Harbring, Christine, 2007. "Feedback in Tournaments under Commitment Problems: The-ory and Experimental Evidence," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 219, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    16. Matthias Kräkel, 2014. "Sandbagging," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(3), pages 263-284, June.
    17. Gürtler, Oliver & Münster, Johannes, 2010. "Sabotage in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 179-190, March.
    18. Münster, Johannes, 2006. "Selection tournaments, sabotage, and participation [Auswahlturniere, Sabotage und Teilnahme]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2006-08, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    19. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.
    20. DeVaro, Jed, 2011. "Using "opposing responses" and relative performance to distinguish empirically among alternative models of promotions," MPRA Paper 35175, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tournament; Political Agency; Elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cra:wpaper:2007-20. 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: Anna-Lea Werlen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cremach.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.