The adverse consequences of tournaments: Evidence from a field experiment

Maria De Paola (), Francesca Gioia () and Vincenzo Scoppa ()

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2018, vol. 151, issue C, 1-18

Abstract: We ran a field experiment to investigate whether competing in rank-order tournaments with different prize spreads affects individual performance. Our experiment involved students from an Italian University who took an exam that was partly evaluated on the basis of relative performance. Students were matched in pairs on the basis of their high school grades and each pair was randomly assigned to one of three different tournaments. Random assignment neutralizes selection effects and allows us to investigate if larger prize spreads increase individual effort. We do not find any positive effect of larger prizes on performance. Furthermore, we show that the effect of prize spreads on students’ performance depends on their degree of risk-aversion: competing in tournaments with large spreads negatively affects the performance of risk-averse students, while it does not produce any effect on students who are more prone to taking risks.

Keywords: Rank-order tournaments; Incentives; Prize spread; Risk-aversion; Randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D81 D82 J24 J31 J33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The adverse consequences of tournaments: Evidence from a field experiment (2018)
Working Paper: THE ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES OF TOURNAMENTS: EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT (2016)
Working Paper: The Adverse Consequences of Tournaments: Evidence from a Field Experiment (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:151:y:2018:i:c:p:1-18

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.05.001

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