Participation incentives in rank order tournaments with endogenous entry

Rank order tournaments, in which the payment to an agent is based upon relative observed performance, are a commonly used compensation scheme. In practice, agents often compete in some (but not all) events in a set of tournaments. The present study considers two mutually exclusive tournaments, in which agents themselves decide which event to enter. An agent bases this decision upon the combination of three distinct effects: a prize effect, a winning probability effect, and an effort cost effect. The precise impact of each of these effects is analyzed. Of particular interest is the possibility that a field of higher quality may be attracted to the event with smaller prizes.      

高管层级差报酬的成因和后果

本文通过对我国上市公司2004年度数据的实证研究发现．随着高成长公司竞争者人数的增加、公司所处地区发达程度的提高和公司规模的扩大,公司高管层级差报酬会随之增加;随着低成长公司竞争者人数的增加和公司所处地区发达程度的提高。公司高管层级差报酬会随之增加;高成长公司和低成长公司在赋予高管层级差报酬影响因素的权重上没有显著差别;高成长公司的高管层级差报酬与公司市场业绩之间存在正相关关系：低成长公司的高管层级差报酬与公司每股收益指标之间存在正相关关系．竞赛理论在我国上市公司中成立。     

Doping and cheating in contest-like situations

Individuals who compete in a contest-like situation (for example, in sports, in promotion tournaments, or in an appointment contest) may have an incentive to illegally utilize resources in order to improve their relative positions. We analyze such doping or cheating within a tournament game between two heterogeneous players. Besides the direct and indirect costs of doping, three major effects are identified which determine a player's decision to deviate from a no-doping situation — a cost effect, a likelihood effect and a base-salary effect. Moreover, the influence of heterogeneity and exogenous performance risk on a no-doping outcome, and the influence of ex-ante and ex-post doping tests on the players' investments are discussed.     

Fixed-prize tournaments versus first-price auctions in innovation contests

This paper analyzes a procurement setting with identical firms and stochastic innovations. In contrast to the previous literature, I show that a procurer who cannot charge entry fees may prefer a fixed-prize tournament to a first-price auction. The reason is that holding an auction may leave higher rents to firms when the innovation technology is subject to large random factors. I would like to thank Dominique Demougin and Carsten Helm for helpful comments and discussions. Financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the SFB 649 “Economic Risk” is gratefully acknowledged.     

Sabotage in Corporate Contests – An Experimental Analysis

In corporate contests, employees compete for a prize. Ideally, contests induce employees to exert productive effort which increases their probability of winning. In many environments, however, employees can also improve their own ranking position by harming their colleagues. Such negative incentive effects of corporate contests are largely unexplored, which can partly be attributed to the fact that sabotaging behavior is almost unobservable in the field. In this study we analyze behavior in experimental contests with heterogeneous players who are able to mutually sabotage each other. We find that sabotaging behavior systematically varies with the composition of different types of contestants. Moreover, if the saboteur’s identity is revealed sabotage decreases while retaliation motives prevail. Our results promise to be valuable when designing corporate contests.     

基于政治锦标赛制的地方官员竞争行为分析

在分析政治晋升锦标赛制度的内涵及其实施条件的基础上,通过构建我国地方官员的总效用函数,探讨了地方官员的综合利益。利用政治晋升负外部性模型,分析了中央政府主要以经济产出作为考核地方官员的政治晋升制度,必然导致竞争有余、合作不足的结果,最后有针对性总结了晋升锦标赛制度的积极性与局限性。     

我国基金家族风险调整行为的实证研究

本文选取我国2008年12月31日之前成立的偏股型基金,研究了2006年1月1日至2009年12月31日期间,基金家族内部基金经理根据每年前期家族内部业绩排名而对后期风险进行调整的行为,发现在基金家族内部前7个月排名靠后的基金,后期会显著增大投资组合风险,说明我国基金家族内部存在基金竞赛,即前期排名靠后的基金经理后期倾向于选择高风险高收益的投资组合。进一步研究发现,这种风险选择行为与基金家族的大小呈正相关关系,即大家族内部基金竞赛行为更显著。     

内部薪酬差距与公司绩效--基于上市公司的实证研究

本文以2007-2010年A股上市公司为研究样本,研究在不同的环境下,高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效的影响。研究发现：高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效起促进作用。锦标赛理论成为近年来解释我国上市公司内部薪酬差距对公司绩效影响的有效理论。随着企业员工薪酬的不同,高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效的影响也会不同。具体表现在,与员工薪酬比较低的企业相比,在员工薪酬比较高的企业中,加大高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距将更有利于公司绩效的提高。此外,企业性质也会影响到薪酬差距对公司绩效的作用。具体来说,与国有性质企业相比,非国有性质企业的薪酬差距对公司绩效提升的促进作用更大。     

Collusion and biased tournaments

Tournaments are vulnerable to collusion. This paper finds that biased tournaments can be more effective at preventing collusion than unbiased ones. When agents can collude to exert low effort, introducing some bias into tournaments generates opposite effects on favored and disfavored agents׳ respective incentives to exert high effort and provides strong incentives for the favored agent to deviate from collusion. Introducing an adequate degree of bias reduces the principal׳s incentive cost for preventing collusion; however, granting excessive bias instead increases the incentive cost. We show that the optimal level of bias can be endogenously determined.     

不公平对待对努力水平的影响——基于三阶段锦标模型的研究

行为经济学研究认为,人们在自利偏好之外还存在公平偏好,不公平对待将导致额外效用;而心理学实验又表明,不公平对待会使人们产生相对剥夺感并增加努力成本。基于公平偏好理论及相对剥夺观点,构建了三阶段晋升锦标模型,研究不公平对待对代理人努力水平的影响。结果表明,代理人的努力水平选择取决于对未来的预期,并且工资差距、努力成本、嫉妒和自豪心理以及监管精度都会影响代理人的努力水平。这一结论有利于预测代理人的行为规律,为建立最优激励机制提供更符合现实情况的理论依据。