A Survey of Experimental Research on Contests, All-Pay Auctions and Tournaments

Dechenaux, Emmanuel and Kovenock, Dan and Sheremeta, Roman (2014): A Survey of Experimental Research on Contests, All-Pay Auctions and Tournaments. Forthcoming in: Experimental Economics

Abstract

Many economic, political and social environments can be described as contests in which agents exert costly efforts 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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: contests, all-pay auctions, tournaments, experiments
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J7 - Labor Discrimination; K - Law and Economics > K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M5 - Personnel Economics

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