Overconfidence in one's relative performance within a group is a wide-spread phenomenon. Similar to individual (or within-group) overconfidence, it was also shown that individuals are, on average, overconfident about the performance of their group relative to other groups. We hypothesize that...

We study experimentally the effects of sorting in contests between groups of heterogeneous players whose within-group efforts are perfect substitutes. The theory predicts that higher aggregate effort will be reached when variation in ability between groups is lower, i.e., by a more balanced...

Managers often use tournaments which motivate workers to compete for the top, compete to avoid the bottom, or both. In this paper we compare the effectiveness and efficiency of the corresponding incentive schemes. To do so, we utilize optimal contracts in a principal-agent setting, using a...

We utilize a laboratory experiment to compare effort provision under optimal tournament contracts with different distributions of prizes which motivate agents to compete to be first, avoid being last, or both. We find that the combined tournament contract incorporating both incentives at the top...

Many empirical studies have found a positive association between economic development and democracy survival across countries; however, establishing a causal link between the two with naturally occurring data is problematic. We address this question in a laboratory experiment with democracy...

Contests are meant to attract the best performers and incentivize high effort, however, they may also attract cheaters who try to win via illicit means which crowds out the best performers. We use a laboratory experiment to explore the role of self-selection in contests with a possibility of...

Employee overwork and fatigue are a concern of managers in many organizations, as they may increase health and safety risks and decrease productivity. The problem is especially severe in competitive environments where compensation and promotions are awarded, explicitly or implicitly, on the...

We study experimentally two-stage self-financing raffles, a novel class of charity fund-raising mechanisms in which participants can buy tickets in two stages. The proceeds of the first stage are used as the seed money for the second stage. The mechanisms differ by what happens to the tickets...