 Contests within and between groups: Theory and experimentPuja Bhattacharya and Jeevant Rampal Games and Economic Behavior, 2024, vol. 145, issue C, 467-492 Abstract: We examine behavior in a two-stage group contest where intra-group contests are followed by an inter-group contest. Rewards accrue to the winning group, with winners of the intra-group contest within that group receiving a greater reward. The model generates a discouragement effect, where losers from the first stage exert less effort in the second stage than winners. In contrast to the related literature, we show that a prior win may be disadvantageous, generating lower profits for first stage winners as compared to losers. We consider exogenous asymmetry between groups arising from a biased group contest success function. Although the asymmetry occurs in the second stage, its effect plays out in the first stage, with higher intra-group conflict in the advantaged group. Experimental results support the qualitative predictions of the model. However, losers from the first stage bear a higher burden of the group contribution than the theoretical prediction. Keywords: Contests; Group behavior; Collective action; Asymmetry (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:145:y:2024:i:c:p:467-492 DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2024.03.017 Access Statistics for this article Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier |
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