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Tournament rewards and heavy tails
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Tournament rewards and heavy tails

Author

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  • Mikhail Drugov

    (New Economic School and CEPR)

  • Dmitry Ryvkin

    (Florida State University)

Abstract

Heavy-tailed fluctuations are common in many environments, such as sales of innovative products or the financial sector. We study how the presence of heavy tails in the distribution of shocks affects the optimal allocation of prizes in rank-order tournaments. While a winner-take-all prize schedule maximizes aggregate effort for light-tailed shocks, prize sharing becomes optimal when shocks acquire heavy tails, increasingly so following a skewness order. Rewarding all ranks but the very last is optimal for power laws. Hence, under heavy-tailed uncertainty typically associated with strong inequality in the distribution of gains, providing incentives and reducing inequality go hand in hand.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikhail Drugov & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2017. "Tournament rewards and heavy tails," Working Papers wp2017_05_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University, revised Sep 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:fsu:wpaper:wp2017_05_01
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    File URL: https://coss.fsu.edu/econpapers/wpaper/wp2017_05_01.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Letina, Igor & Liu, Shuo & Netzer, Nick, 2023. "Optimal contest design: Tuning the heat," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    2. Yildirim, Mustafa, 2023. "When does division matter? Revisiting the optimal contest architecture," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    3. Name Correa, Alvaro J. & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2024. "Multiple prizes in tournaments with career concerns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    4. Fu, Qiang & Wang, Xiruo & Wu, Zenan, 2021. "Multi-prize contests with risk-averse players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 513-535.
    5. Song, Jian & Houser, Daniel, 2023. "Asymmetric shocks in contests: Theory and experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 243-267.
    6. Mert Kimya, 2024. "Power, Status and the Stability of Hierarchies," Working Papers 2024-04, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    7. Mikhail Drugov & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2019. "The shape of luck and competition in tournaments," Working Papers w0251, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    8. Doron Klunover, 2020. "Nice guys don't always finish last: succeeding in hierarchical organizations," Papers 2007.04435, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2020.
    9. Nicolas de Roos & Alexander Matros & Vladimir Smirnov, 2024. "Elimination tournaments with resource constraints," Working Papers 2024-06, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    10. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei & Zhou, Lixue, 2022. "Optimal favoritism in contests with identity-contingent prizes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 40-50.
    11. Liu, Bin & Lu, Jingfeng, 2023. "Optimal orchestration of rewards and punishments in rank-order contests," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    12. Aner Sela & Ishay Rabi & Chen Cohen, 2024. "Reputation in Contests," Working Papers 2409, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    13. Mengxi Zhang, 2023. "Optimal Contests with Incomplete Information and Convex Effort Costs," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_156v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    14. Zhu, Weichao & Wang, Lu & Lang, Youze, 2022. "The costs and benefits of tournament in a frictional labor market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    15. Ryvkin, Dmitry & Drugov, Mikhail, 2020. "The shape of luck and competition in winner-take-all tournaments," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    16. Fu, Qiang & Wu, Zenan & Zhu, Yuxuan, 2023. "On equilibrium uniqueness in generalized multi-prize nested lottery contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 180-199.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    heavy tails; power law; tournament; optimal allocation of prizes; failure rate;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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