“Success breeds success” or “Pride goes before a fall”?: Teams and individuals in multi-contest tournaments

We study the impact of progress feedback on players' performance in multi-contest team tournaments, in which team members' efforts are not directly substitutable. In particular, we employ a real-effort laboratory experiment to understand, in a best-of-three tournament, how players' strategic mindsets change when they compete on a team compared to when they compete individually. Our data corroborate the theoretical predictions for teams: Neither a lead nor a lag in the first component contest affects a team's performance in the subsequent contests. In individual tournaments, however, contrary to the theoretical prediction, we observe that leaders perform worse—but laggards perform better—after learning the outcome of the first contest. Our findings offer the first empirical evidence from a controlled laboratory of the impact of progress feedback between team and individual tournaments, and contribute new insights on team incentives.     

Idea Competitions under scrutiny: Acquisition,intelligence or public relations mechanism?

Idea Competitions (ICs) are becoming a popular mechanism chosen by firms to perform Open Innovation. They are a way to engage with external sources of knowledge such as individual entrepreneurs and small firms who are asked to submit ideas and compete for a prize. However, little is known about the success of ICs as acquisition mechanisms. The researchers conducted interviews in five multinational companies to evaluate the effects of using ICs as an acquisition mechanism. Although still preliminary, the results of this study show that the success of ICs as an acquisition mechanism remains uncertain because their output (i.e. the number of ideas acquired) is often low compared to the input (i.e. the number of ideas submitted) and effort required to run them (e.g. to vet ideas). Across the cases observed, ICs appear to be more successful at identifying and acquiring early-stage ideas, particularly those outside the current business focus. The study shows that ICs deliver other functional benefits such as improved intelligence and public relations and that these need to be considered as part of the evaluation of the IC's success. The paper concludes by discussing the conditions in which ICs are implemented and the implications for Open Innovation theory.     

Contestability and Pay Differential in the Executive Suites

In comparison to the abundant evidence on CEOs' compensations, little is known about the compensation of other senior executives, and on how the pay differential between CEO and other senior executives affects firm performance. We examine several potential explanations of the pay differential in the executive suite, using a sample of 367 Israeli firms listed on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange. The empirical results fail to support the tournament and pay equity models. Instead, our evidence suggests a model where senior executives are encouraged (by the structure implied in their pay contract) to cooperate with each other (the team playing model). In a subset of firms managed by their owners we observe greater pay differentials between the owner-CEO and other senior executives. Interestingly, only in this subset of owner-managed firms, higher pay differentials can be associated with better firm performance.     

Human capital investments in asymmetric corporate tournaments

We consider a tournament between two workers of different abilities who choose both human capital investment and effort. The employer can influence the workers’ behavior by determining the sequence of human capital investments, i.e. the training design. The workers can either invest simultaneously or sequentially with the favorite being the first mover or sequentially with the underdog as first mover. The results show that the outcome of the tournament crucially depends on the employer’s choice of training design and on the ability difference between the workers. If the two workers clearly differ in their abilities the employer will prefer simultaneous human capital accumulation. However, if the abilities of the two workers are rather similar the employer optimally chooses sequential human capital accumulation with the underdog being the first mover.     

中国农村劳动力的转移：锦标制度下的解释

在中国农村劳动力转移的过程中 ,城镇户籍制度改革并未能起到预期的作用。运用锦标制度理论分析了其中的原因 ,提出了相关建议     

Career concerns and peer effects in institutional tournaments: Evidence from ECB reserve currency portfolios

Using data on European Central Bank's (ECB's) reserve currency portfolios, we find that money managers react to relative rankings (i.e., own vs. peers’ performance) by adjusting portfolio active risk levels measured ex ante by actual deviations from their benchmark. This occurs in the absence of explicit incentives as no monetary reward is promised for winning this “tournament” among portfolio managers. We collect information on managers’ characteristics, including age, education, tenure, salary, and career path, and investigate the role played by implicit incentives. We provide evidence that both individual career concerns and institutional peer pressure contribute to the documented relationship between ranking and risk taking.     

Pension Fund Manager Tournaments and Attitudes Towards Corporate Characteristics

Abstract:  This paper explores the relationship between the tournament incentives of pension fund managers and the characteristics of equities they choose to hold. Using a comprehensive data set on pension fund portfolio holdings, we determine the intensity of fund manager tournaments by sorting pension funds into portfolios based on the number of concurrent managers each pension fund employs. We then investigate which corporate characteristics are preferred by each of these portfolios by estimating share selection models that include a range of corporate characteristics that are expected to shape the returns to investment in stocks over the short and long run. We find that the intensity of the tournament faced by fund managers plays a significant role in shaping preferences over corporate characteristics. Managers facing more intense tournaments exhibit significantly weaker preferences for attributes associated with long run payoffs, such as social performance and growth potential, and significantly stronger preferences for short term attributes, such as operational efficiency, when compared to managers that face weak or no tournament incentives.     

Books Reviewed

Books reviewed:
Julian M. Alston, Philip G. Pardey and Vincent H. Smith, (eds.) Paying for Agricultural Productivity
P.K. Rao, The Economics of Global Climatic Change
Bernard Salanie, The Economics of Contracts: A Primer
Raisuddin Ahmed, Steven Haggblade and Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, (eds.) Out of the Shadow of Famine: Evolving Food Markets and Food Policy in Bangladesh
Lyle P. Schertz and Otto C. Doering III, The Making of the 1996 Farm Act
Joseph A. Herriges and Catherine L. Kling, Valuing Recreation and the Environment
James R. Prescott, Paul Van Moeseke and Jati Sengupta, (eds.) Urban-Regional Economics, Social System Accounts, and EcoBehavioural Science, Selected Writings of Karl A. Fox
Brent M. Haddad, Rivers of Gold: Designing Markets to Allocate Water in California
J. M. Antle, J. N. Lekakis and G. P. Zenias, (eds.) Agriculture, Trade and the Environment: The Impact of Liberalization on Sustainable Development
J. Barkley Rosser Jr., From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities: Mathematics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Finance     

基于三阶段锦标制度的系统集成知识创新激励机制研究

异构信息系统集成建立在知识创新的基础上,但项目主体因知识创新投入不能有效补偿而消极参与知识创新,构建有效的知识创新激励机制成为必然要求。文章将知识创新划分为知识共享、集成方案制定以及集成方案实施三阶段,将传统的两阶段锦标激励演变为针对知识创新的三阶段锦标激励,提出分阶段激励、分阶段确定奖励比例以及分阶段确定奖励额度的激励机制。最后介绍这一机制的应用案例。     

Exploring Casino Special Events: An Empirical Analysis for Determining Which Themed Celebrations and Tournaments Have An Indirect Effect on Increasing Slot Volumes

This empirical study sheds light on the indirect effects of slot-player special events on casino revenues. Slot departments provide the largest gaming percentage profit for U.S. casinos, almost twice that of table-game departments, making it crucial to cultivate robust slot operations. Casino special events, which include culture-, recreation-, and sports-themed experiences as well as slot tournaments, are experiential marketing techniques used to sustain slot-player relationships and/or increase casino gaming volumes. This exploratory study uses multiple regression analysis to identify which special events, including the corresponding complimentary rooms, have significant indirect effects on slot machine wagers, providing a model for casino managers to predict their special events’ indirect effects on slot revenues.