Women and competition in elimination tournaments: evidence from professional tennis data

Francois Rycx, Thierry Lallemand and Robert Plasman

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: This article examines how professional female tennis players react to (a) prize incentives and (b) heterogeneity in ex ante players' abilities. It is found that a larger prize spread encourages women to increase effort, even when controlling for many tournament and player characteristics. Further results indicate that uneven contests lead favorites to win more games and underdogs to be less performing. They also show that the performance differential among players increases with the ranking differential. These findings suggest that the outcome of a match is more linked to players' abilities than to players' incentives to adjust effort according to success chances.

Keywords: Incentives; Performance; Tennis; Tournaments; Women (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-02-01
Note: SCOPUS: ar.j
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published in: Journal of Sports Economics (2008) v.9 n° 1,p.3-19

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Related works:
Working Paper: Women and competition in elimination tournaments: evidence from professional tennis data (2005)
Working Paper: Women and Competition in Elimination Tournaments: Evidence from Professional Tennis Data (2005)
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