Learning by doing in contests

Derek Clark () and Tore Nilssen ()

Public Choice, 2013, vol. 156, issue 1, 329-343

Abstract: We introduce learning by doing in a dynamic contest. Contestants compete in an early round and can use the experience gained to reduce effort cost in a subsequent contest. A contest designer can decide how much of the prize mass to distribute in the early contest and how much to leave for the later one in order to maximize total efforts. We show how this division affects effort at each stage, and present conditions that characterize the optimal split. There is a trade off here, since a large early prize increases first period efforts leading to a substantial reduction in second round effort cost; on the other hand, there is less of the prize mass to fight over in the second round, reducing effort at that stage. The results are indicative of the fact that the designer often prefers to leave most of the prize mass for the second contest to reap the gains from the learning by doing effect. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Keywords: Learning by doing; Dynamic contest; Prize division; D74; D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Working Paper: Learning by Doing in Contests (2010)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9905-9

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