The Tug-of-War in the Laboratory

Cary Deck () and Roman Sheremeta

Working Papers from Chapman University, Economic Science Institute

Abstract: The tug-of-war is a multi-battle contest often used to describe extended interactions in economics, operations management, political science, and other disciplines. While there has been some theoretical work, to the best of our knowledge, this paper provides the first experimental study of the tug-of-war. The results show notable deviations of behavior from theory derived under standard assumptions. In the first battle of the tug-of-war, subjects often bid less, while in the follow-up battles, they bid more than predicted. Also, contrary to the prediction, bids tend to increase in the duration of the tug-of-war. Finally, extending the margin necessary to win the tug-of-war causes a greater reduction in bidding than either a decrease in the prize or greater impatience despite all three having the same predicted effect. These findings have implications both for theorists and practitioners.

Keywords: tug-of-war; all-pay auction; multi-stage contest; laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D72 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Downloads: (external link)
https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/275/

Related works:
Journal Article: The tug-of-war in the laboratory (2019)
Working Paper: Tug-of-War in the Laboratory (2015)
Working Paper: Tug-of-War in the Laboratory (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chu:wpaper:18-21

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