Do Setbacks Delay the Participation in Repeated Competitions? Evidence from a Natural Experiment with Amateur Tennis Players

Simon Haenni

Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie from Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie

Abstract: Many important life goals require repeated confrontation with competitors. Losing in such competitions may discourage individuals and make them postpone the next stage of the competition and thereby harm future prospects. This study shows new evidence from a large natural experiment with amateur tennis players on how competition outcomes causally aff ect the time to the next tournament. The results suggest that individuals take on average 10% longer to compete again after losing than after winning. The comprehensive data-set allows to identify individual rankings and predicted competition outcomes as reference points, suggesting a complementary role of status-quo and expectation-based reference points.

Keywords: competition; reference points; field data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D81 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pp.
Date: 2016-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lau:crdeep:16.13

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