Behavior In Tournaments Research Articles

Cooperate or compete? The impact of vertical wage dispersion on employees’ behavior in tournaments

We investigate the effect of vertical wage dispersion, defined as the difference in wages between superiors and subordinates, on subordinates’ behaviors in competition. We propose that higher vertical wage dispersion increases subordinates’ desire to reduce the vertical pay gap through collusion against their superiors in a setting where collusion reduces subordinate effort while increasing subordinates’ pay. Our two experiments test our prediction in one-shot (Study 1) and repeated (Study 2) tournament settings. In Study 1, we find that rather than increasing collusion, high vertical wage dispersion increases competitiveness and effort contribution. In Study 2, we find support for our prediction that high vertical wage dispersion increases collusion and reduces effort contribution due to the trust building between subordinates that is facilitated by repeated tournaments. We contribute to the growing research on pay dispersion by studying how vertical wage dispersion affects lower-level employees’ interaction with their peers. We also extend tournament research by studying how a contextual variable outside the tournament, i.e., ex ante vertical wage dispersion, could affect employees’ willingness to compete or to collude in tournaments. An implication of our finding is that high vertical wage dispersion may make competitive incentives more or less effective, depending on the context.

Managerial behavior in fund tournaments\u2014the impact of TrueSkill

Measuring mutual fund managers’ skills by Microsoft’s TrueSkill algorithm, we find highly skilled managers to behave self-confident resulting in higher risk-taking in the second half of the year compared to less skilled managers. Introducing the TrueSkill algorithm, which is widely used in the e-sports community, to this branch of literature, we can replicate previous findings and theories suggesting overconfidence for mid-years winners.

Adding tournament to tournament: Combining between-team and within-team incentives

We examine theoretically and experimentally how combining between-team and within-team incentives affects behavior in team tournaments. Theory predicts that free-riding will occur when there are only between-team incentives, and offering within-team incentives may solve this problem. However, if individuals collude, then within-team incentives may not be as effective at reducing free-riding. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, the results of our experiment indicate that although between-team incentives are effective at increasing individual effort, there is substantial free-riding and declining effort over time. Importantly, a combination of between-team and within-team incentives is effective not only at generating effort but also at sustaining effort over time, mitigating free-riding problem, increasing cooperation and decreasing collusion within teams.

Adding Tournament to Tournament: Combining Between-Team and Within-Team Incentives

We examine theoretically and experimentally how combining between-team and within-team incentives affects behavior in team tournaments. Theory predicts that free-riding is likely to occur when there are only between-team incentives, and offering within-team incentives may solve this problem. However, if individuals collude, then within-team incentives may not be as effective at reducing free-riding. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, the results of our experiment indicate that although between-team incentives are effective at increasing individual effort, there is substantial free-riding and declining effort over time. Importantly, a combination of between-team and within-team incentives is effective not only at generating effort but also at sustaining effort over time, mitigating free-riding problem, increasing cooperation and decreasing collusion within teams.

Sabotaging Another: Priming Competition Increases Cheating Behavior in Tournaments

Trophy. Goal. Dominated. Does priming individuals with competitive concepts such as these influence the temptation to cheat? We utilize a standard laboratory cheating task in a tournament setting and test whether nonconscious priming impacts the nature of cheating behavior. The results demonstrate an asymmetry in a winner‐take‐all setting: a competitive prime does not increase cheating to improve one's own outcome, but does significantly increase the willingness of an individual to sabotage a competitor.

No Guts, No Glory: An Experiment on Excessive Risk-Taking

We study risk-taking behavior in tournaments where the optimal strategy is to take no risk. By keeping the optimal strategy constant, while varying the competitiveness in the tournaments, we are able to investigate the relationship between competitiveness and excessive risk-taking. In the most competitive tournament, less than 10% of the subjects played the optimal strategy in the first rounds. The majority playing dominated strategies increased their risk-taking during game of play. When we removed feedback about winner’s decisions each round, and when we reduced the number of contestants in the tournaments, subjects significantly reduced their risk-taking.

INCIDENCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF RISK‐TAKING BEHAVIOR IN TOURNAMENTS—EVIDENCE FROM THE NBA

We empirically explore the relevance and efficiency of risk‐taking behavior in tournaments. We use data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and measure risk‐taking by the fraction of three‐point shots in basketball games. We examine how point differences between teams during games affect their subsequent risk‐taking behavior. It is found that teams that are trailing are more likely to increase their use of three‐point shots. We additionally analyze the consequences of this change in behavior. Enhanced risk‐taking is inefficient in the vast majority of cases and is only beneficial if a team is trailing by a rather large margin. We discuss possible explanations for these decision errors. (JEL M5, D81, J30)

Envy and loss aversion in tournaments

Tournaments require a large gap in prizes in order to induce incentives. The resulting unequal distribution suggests that monetary payoffs are not the only motive that determines agents’ decisions. In our experiment we test theoretical predictions about the role of envy and loss aversion in tournaments. Our results confirm that the limitation of inequity between subjects’ payments implies lower effort while the elimination of losses relative to expectations decreases the variance of effort. They suggest that envy and loss aversion drive behavior in tournaments. Moreover, we show that standard theory provides a good explanation for competitive behavior when envy and loss aversion do not play a role in the decision making process.

Learning to compete, coordinate, and cooperate in repeated games using reinforcement learning

We consider the problem of learning in repeated general-sum matrix games when a learning algorithm can observe the actions but not the payoffs of its associates. Due to the non-stationarity of the environment caused by learning associates in these games, most state-of-the-art algorithms perform poorly in some important repeated games due to an inability to make profitable compromises. To make these compromises, an agent must effectively balance competing objectives, including bounding losses, playing optimally with respect to current beliefs, and taking calculated, but profitable, risks. In this paper, we present, discuss, and analyze M-Qubed, a reinforcement learning algorithm designed to overcome these deficiencies by encoding and balancing best-response, cautious, and optimistic learning biases. We show that M-Qubed learns to make profitable compromises across a wide-range of repeated matrix games played with many kinds of learners. Specifically, we prove that M-Qubed's average payoffs meet or exceed its maximin value in the limit. Additionally, we show that, in two-player games, M-Qubed's average payoffs approach the value of the Nash bargaining solution in self play. Furthermore, it performs very well when associating with other learners, as evidenced by its robust behavior in round-robin and evolutionary tournaments of two-player games. These results demonstrate that an agent can learn to make good compromises, and hence receive high payoffs, in repeated games by effectively encoding and balancing best-response, cautious, and optimistic learning biases.

Risk Taking Behavior in Tournaments: Evidence from the NBA

We empirically explore the relevance of risk taking behavior in tournaments. We make use of data from the NBA season 2007/2008 and measure risk taking by the fraction of three-point shots. Current heterogeneity of teams is taken into account by intermediate results. It turns out that indeed teams who are behind increase the risk in terms of more three-point attempts. We additionally analyze the consequences of this change in behavior. Enhanced risk taking is inefficient for the vast majority of cases and only beneficial in terms of a higher winning probability if a team is behind with a rather large amount of points. We discuss possible explanations for these decision errors.

Preemption in rank-order tournaments

In this paper, we show that contestants’ behavior in sequential-move tournaments strictly differs from the behavior in simultaneous-move ones. In a sequential-move tournament, players choose different effort levels even in the case of homogeneity, whereas in the simultaneous-move tournament homogeneous players always behave symmetrically. Moreover, in the sequential setting the first-moving player may choose a preemptively high effort level so that the second mover drops out of the competition under certain conditions. In order to avoid such behavior, the organizer of the tournament should choose a rather moderate spread between winner and loser prize as best response.

Preemptive behavior in sequential-move tournaments with heterogeneous agents

Rank-order tournaments are usually modeled simultaneously. However, real tournaments are often sequential. We show that agents' strategic behavior in sequential-move tournaments significantly differ from the one in simultaneous-move tournaments: In a sequential-move tournament with heterogeneous agents, the first acting agent may choose a preemptively high effort so that the following agent gives up. The principal is able to prevent preemptive behavior in equilibrium by choosing a sufficiently small spread between winner and loser prize.

Preemptive Behavior in Sequential Tournaments

Rank-order tournaments are usually modeled simultaneously. However, real tournaments are often sequentially. We show that agents' strategic behavior significantly differs in sequential tournaments compared to simultaneous tournaments. In a sequential tournament, under certain conditions the first acting agent chooses a preemptively high effort so that the following agent gives up. In general, the principal will prefer simultaneous tournaments in which preemptive behavior is impossible.