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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Experimental Research On Contests, Roman M. Sheremeta
Experimental Research On Contests, Roman M. Sheremeta
ESI Working Papers
Costly competitions between economic agents are modeled as contests. Researchers use laboratory experiments to study contests and test comparative static predictions of contest theory. Commonly, researchers find that participants’ efforts are significantly higher than predicted by the standard Nash equilibrium. Despite overbidding, most comparative static predictions, such as the incentive effect, the size effect, the discouragement effect and others are supported in the laboratory. In addition, experimental studies examine various contest structures, including dynamic contests (such as multi-stage races, wars of attrition, tug-of-wars), multi-dimensional contests (such as Colonel Blotto games), and contests between groups. This article provides a short review …
The Tug-Of-War In The Laboratory, Cary Deck, Roman Sheremeta
The Tug-Of-War In The Laboratory, Cary Deck, Roman Sheremeta
ESI Working Papers
The tug-of-war is a multi-battle contest often used to describe extended interactions in economics, operations management, political science, and other disciplines. While there has been some theoretical work, to the best of our knowledge, this paper provides the first experimental study of the tug-of-war. The results show notable deviations of behavior from theory derived under standard assumptions. In the first battle of the tug-of-war, subjects often bid less, while in the follow-up battles, they bid more than predicted. Also, contrary to the prediction, bids tend to increase in the duration of the tug-of-war. Finally, extending the margin necessary to win …