Entry into winner-take-all and proportional-prize contests: An experimental study

Cason, Timothy N.; Masters, William A.; Sheremeta, Roman M.

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.05.006

Cited by 223 publications

(162 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Despite observing no gender differences in terms of skill at doing the task, when a competitive payment system was implemented, women opted out of the competition at vastly greater rates than men. Similar results are reported in Cason et al (2010). Gneezy et al (2003) report results of laboratory experiments for a maze-solving task where entry was not endogenous.…”

Section: Gendersupporting

confidence: 84%

Endogenous entry in contests

2010

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We report the results of laboratory experiments on rent-seeking contests with endogenous participation. Theory predicts that (a) contest entry and rent-seeking expenditures increase with the size of the prize and (b) earnings are equalized between the contest and the outside option. While the directional predictions offered in (a) are supported in the data, the level predictions are not. Prediction (b) is not supported in the data: when the prize is large, contest participants earn more than the outside option. When the prize is small, contest participants earn less. Previous studies of gender and contest competition suggest that females should (a) not perform as well in the contest; and (b) enter at a lower rate. We find some support for (a) but not for (b). Women participate in the contest at the same rate as men.

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Section: Gendersupporting

confidence: 84%

Endogenous entry in contests

2010

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“…The 2-digit numbers task is commonly used in the experimental literature because it is easy to explain, does not require previous experience and performance is not associated with a particular gender, socioeconomic background, or physical conditioning (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007;Cason et al, 2010). In each treatment, participants were provided with up to 60 problems (one at a time) they could attempt to solve during 5 minutes.…”

Section: Experimental Design and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loss aversion and the quantity–quality tradeoff

2017

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Firms face an optimization problem that requires a maximal quantity output given a quality constraint. But how do firms incentivize quantity and quality to meet these dual goals, and what role do behavioral factors such as loss aversion play in the tradeoffs workers face? We address these issues with a theoretical model and an experiment in which participants are paid for both quantity and quality of a real effort task. Consistent with the basic economic theory, higher quality incentives encourage participants to shift their attention from quantity to quality. However, we also find that loss averse subjects shift their attention from quality to quantity to a greater degree when quality is weakly incentivized. These results can inform managers of the most appropriate ways to structure contracts.JEL Classifications: D24, J24, J31, J41

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“…These studies started with the discussion of how incentive schemes affect women's and men's performance differently (Gneezy et al 2003). The gender gap in entry into competition found by Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) seems to be quite robust, as the results in a number of papers with similar designs show (see, e.g., , Booth and Nolen 2012, Cason et al 2010, Dargnies 2012, Sutter and Glätzle-Rützler 2014, Wozniak et al 2014. In addition, similar gender gaps were found under a variety of different designs (see, e.g., Gupta et al 2013, Dohmen and Falk 2011 and in the field (Flory et al 2010).…”

Section: Competitiveness and Gender Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Advice on Women's and Men's Selection into Competition

2015

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W e conduct a laboratory experiment to study how advice by a more experienced and better-informed person affects an individual's entry into a real-effort tournament and the gender gap. Our experiment is motivated by the concerns raised by approaching the gender gap through affirmative action policies. Overall, advice improves the entry decision of subjects, in that forgone earnings due to wrong entry decisions go significantly down. The improvements are mainly driven by increased entry of strong-performing women, who also become more confident, and reduced entry of weak-performing men. We find that the overall gender gap persists even though it disappears among low and strong performers. The persistence is due to an emerging gender gap among intermediate performers driven by women (men) following more the advice to stay out of (enter) the tournament in this performance group.

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Entry into winner-take-all and proportional-prize contests: An experimental study

Cited by 223 publications

References 39 publications

Endogenous entry in contests

Endogenous entry in contests

Loss aversion and the quantity–quality tradeoff

The Impact of Advice on Women's and Men's Selection into Competition

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