Due to their inefficient use of information, promotion incentives, which can be modeled as tournaments, can induce sub-optimal actions on the part of managers. This is a problem for firms because it leads to choices that do not maximize profit. This also can pose interpretation and comparison...

We report the results of an experiment designed to examine investment project selection under promotion incentives, modeled as tournament contracts. For a given expected return, the owner prefers investments with lower systematic risk. Therefore, to the extent managers select investments other...