Workplace tournaments are one likely contributor to gender differences in labor market outcomes. Relative to men, women are often less eager to compete and thrive less under competitive pressure. We investigate a competitive workplace environment that may produce more gender-neutral outcomes:...

We study bribing in a sequential team contest with multiple pairwise battles. We allow for asymmetries in winning prizes and marginal costs of effort; and we characterize the conditions under which (i) a player in a team is offered a bribe by the owner of the other team and (ii) she accepts the...

In winner-take-all tournaments, agents' performance is determined jointly by effort and luck, and the top performer is rewarded. We study the impact of the ''shape of luck'' -- the details of the distribution of performance shocks -- on incentives in such settings. We are concerned with the...

An incumbent employee competes against a new hire for bonus or promotion. The incumbent's ability is commonly known, while that of the new hire is private information. The incumbent is subject to a perceptional bias: His prior about the new hire's type differs from the true underlying...

To enact a policy, a leader needs votes from committee members with heterogeneous opposition intensities. She sequentially offers transfers in exchange for votes. The transfers are either promises paid only if the policy is put to a vote or paid up front. With transfer promises, the leader buys...

We introduce political tournaments “participation/inclusion” games. Dominant strategies determine whether players choose to compete by enhancing economic performance. Unique Nash equilibria competitors win (only) inclusion as promotion candidates. We find empirical justification for such...

In this paper, we show that the right to determine the sequence of moves in a dynamic team tournament improves the chances of winning the contest. Because studying dynamic team tournaments – like R&D races – with interim feedback is difficult with company data, we examine decisions of highly...

In this paper, we show that the right to determine the sequence of moves in a dynamic team tournament improves the chances of winning the contest. Because studying dynamic team tournaments – like R&D races – with interim feedback is difficult with company data, we examine decisions of highly...

We attempt to determine if tournaments create an intrinsic desire of agents to work long and hard even after all prizes are paid out by developing a theory of workaholic behavior. We base this theory on a model for asymmetric belief updating. In this model, agents infer their productivity from...