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Feedback in Tournaments under Commitment Problems: Experimental Evidence

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  • Oliver Gürtler
  • Christine Harbring

Abstract

We theoretically as well as experimentally analyze tournaments in which one of the agents leads over the other before entering the tournament, that is, in which one of the competitors benefits from a head start. The principal may decide upon informing the agents about the degree of this asymmetry. She cannot commit to giving feedback ex ante or not and, thus, chooses the strategy that is optimal for her ex post. In equilibrium, the principal reveals information if the asymmetry is not too large. Our experimental findings qualitatively confirm our theoretical prediction. Moreover, behavior of the principal and the agents is well aligned to each other.

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  • Oliver Gürtler & Christine Harbring, 2010. "Feedback in Tournaments under Commitment Problems: Experimental Evidence," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 771-810, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:3:p:771-810
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00269.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Fu, Qiang & Gürtler, Oliver & Münster, Johannes, 2013. "Communication and commitment in contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 1-19.
    2. Dickmanns, Lisa & Gürtler, Marc & Gürtler, Oliver, 2018. "Market-based tournaments: An experimental investigation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 294-306.
    3. Fares, M'hand & Orozco, Luis, 2014. "Tournament Mechanism in Wine-Grape Contracts: Evidence from a French Wine Cooperative," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 320-345, December.
    4. Czerny, Achim I. & Fosgerau, Mogens & Jost, Peter-J. & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2019. "Why pay for jobs (and not for tasks)?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 419-433.
    5. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    6. Shakun D. Mago & Anya C. Savikhin & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2012. "Facing Your Opponents: Social identification and information feedback in contests," Working Papers 12-15, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Lucia Marchegiani & Tommaso Reggiani & Matteo Rizzolli, 2013. "Severity vs. Leniency Bias in Performance Appraisal: Experimental evidence," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS01, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    8. Graff, Frederik & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Competing on the Holodeck - The effect of virtual peers and heterogeneity in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Ralph‐C Bayer & Chaohua Dong & Hang Wu, 2019. "The impact of the number of sellers on quantal response equilibrium predictions in Bertrand oligopolies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 787-793, November.
    10. Benoît S. Y. Crutzen & Otto H. Swank & Bauke Visser, 2013. "Confidence Management: On Interpersonal Comparisons in Teams," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 744-767, December.
    11. Hammond, Robert G. & Zheng, Xiaoyong, 2013. "Heterogeneity in tournaments with incomplete information: An experimental analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 248-260.
    12. Ertac, Seda & Koçkesen, Levent & Ozdemir, Duygu, 2016. "The role of verifiability and privacy in the strategic provision of performance feedback: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 24-45.
    13. Ertac, Seda & Gümren, Mert & Koçkesen, Levent, 2019. "Strategic feedback in teams: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1-23.
    14. Elizabeth Sheedy & Le Zhang & Dominik Steffan, 2022. "Scorecards, gateways and rankings: remuneration and conduct in financial services," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(3), pages 3239-3283, September.
    15. Gjedrem, William Gilje, 2018. "Relative performance feedback: Effective or dismaying?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-16.

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