Individual contribution in team contests

Antoine Chapsal and Jean-Baptiste Vilain

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2019, vol. 75, issue PB

Abstract: This paper empirically analyzes team effects in multiple pairwise battles, where players from two rival teams compete sequentially. Using international squash tournaments as a randomized natural experiment, we show that winning the first battle significantly increases the probability of winning the subsequent one. This result contradicts recent theoretical literature on multi-battle team contests, according to which outcomes of past confrontations should not affect the present ones. Furthermore, we derive testable predictions from a theoretical model in order to identify the effect at play. We provide compelling evidence of an individual contribution effect: players not only benefit from their team’s win, but also value the fact of being individually – even partly – responsible for their team’s collective success. Such an effect is of prime importance to understanding why individuals can make a significant effort when offered collective-based incentives.

Keywords: Team economics; Multiple pairwise battles; Individual contribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D79 L83 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:75:y:2019:i:pb:s0167487017304452

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.07.003

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