The Performance-Enhancing Drug Game

Kjetil Haugen

Journal of Sports Economics, 2004, vol. 5, issue 1, 67-86

Abstract: Antidoping work consumes huge economic resources. Formal understanding of economic forces that drive athletes to use drugs is lacking. Consequently, work on this phenomenon may be of interest to the sports community, especially the antidoping community. This study uses simple game theory to analyze simple two-player games representing various situations of sports activity. The basic findings are the existence of Nash equilibria forcing agents to use drugs that are very often of the prisoner’s dilemma type, and antidoping work with small or no effects may hence lead to Pareto-worsened situations. This study also shows that antidoping activity should be differentiated between sports activities. Finally, somediscussions on alternative regulatory policies conclude that improved testing may not be the most efficient way to fight doping—if the fight against doping is as important as sports officials like to tell us.

Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:5:y:2004:i:1:p:67-86

DOI: 10.1177/1527002503251712

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