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A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments
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Abstract Many economic, political and social environments can be described as contests in which agents exert costly effort while competing over the distribution of a scarce resource. These environments have been studied using Tullock contests, all-pay auctions and rank-order tournaments. This survey provides a comprehensive review of experimental research on these three canonical contests. First, we review studies investigating the basic structure of contests, including the number of players and prizes, spillovers and externalities, heterogeneity, risk and incomplete information. Second, we discuss dynamic contests and multi-battle contests. Then we review studies examining sabotage, feedback, bias, collusion, alliances, group contests and gender, as well as field experiments. Finally, we discuss applications of contests and suggest directions for future research.
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“However, empirical research on contests and tournaments contradicts Festinger's expectation that underachievers increase effort.”
From Relative Feedback Increases Disparities in Effort and Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment on Topcoder (2022) · cites this paper as Dechenaux et al., 2015
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“Specifically, contests and tournaments, where financial rewards depend on rank performance, elicit more individual effort than piece-wise remuneration schemes and, in fact, drive individual effort expenditure beyond what is rational (Cason, Masters, & Sheremeta, 2010;Connelly, Tihanyi, Crook, & Gangloff, 2014;Dechenaux, Kovenock, & Sheremeta, 2015;Dickinson & Isaac, 1998).”
From Relative Feedback Increases Disparities in Effort and Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment on Topcoder (2022) · cites this paper as Dechenaux, Kovenock, & Sheremeta, 2015
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“Compared to piece-rate schemes, contests, all-pay auctions, and tournaments result in higher variance in individual effort (Cason et al., 2010;Dechenaux et al., 2015;van Dijk, Sonnemans, & van Winden, 2001).”
From Relative Feedback Increases Disparities in Effort and Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment on Topcoder (2022) · cites this paper as Dechenaux et al., 2015
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Specifically, contests and tournaments, where financial rewards depend on rank performance, elicit more individual effort than piece-wise remuneration schemes and, in fact, drive individual effort expenditure beyond what is rational (Cason, Masters, & Sheremeta, 2010;Connelly, Tihanyi, Crook, & Gangloff, 2014;Dechenaux, Kovenock, & Sheremeta, 2015;Dickinson & Isaac, 1998).”
From Relative Feedback Increases Disparities in Effort and Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment on Topcoder (2022) · cites this paper as Dechenaux, Kovenock, & Sheremeta, 2015
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“The IADC is an all-pay contest with a single mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium (Abbink et al., 2010; Dechenaux et al., 2015).”
From Oxytocin promotes coordinated out-group attack during intergroup conflict in humans (2019) · cites this paper as Dechenaux et al., 2015
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Metadata
- Authors
- Dechenaux, E., Kovenock, D., & Sheremeta, R. M.
- Affiliations
- Kent State University (US)
- Chapman University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sheremeta, Roman M.
- Venue
- Experimental Economics
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2015-12
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 609-669
- ISSN
- 1386-4157 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6938
- OpenAlex
- W2239954174
- Cited by
- 706
- References
- 383
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 64 · 2021: 52 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 67 · 2018: 81 · 2017: 70 · 2016: 56 · 2015: 53
- FWCI
- 202.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Experimental Economics (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Chapman University Digital Commons (Chapman University) (submittedVersion)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Social Science Open Access Repository (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Auction Theory and Applications
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Game Theory and Voting Systems
- Keywords
- contests, all-pay auctions, rank-order tournaments, Tullock contest, costly effort, spillover effects, externalities, heterogeneous players, risk, incomplete information, dynamic contests, sabotage, feedback, collusion, alliances, group contests, gender, field experiments
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