Optimal seedings in elimination tournaments

Christian Groh, Benny Moldovanu (), Aner Sela and Uwe Sunde

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study an elimination tournament with heterogenous contestants whose ability is common-knowledge. Each pair-wise match is modeled as an all-pay auction. Equilibrium efforts are in mixed strategies, yielding complex dynamics: endogenous win probabilities in each match depend on other matches’ outcome through the identity of the expected opponent in the next round. The designer seeds competitors according to their ranks. For tournaments with four players we find optimal seedings for three different criteria: (1) maximization of total tournament effort; (2) maximization of the probability of a final among the two top ranked teams; (3) maximization of the win probability for the top player. We also find the seedings ensuring that higher ranked players have a higher winning probability. We compare our predictions with data from NCAA basketball tournaments.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Published in Economic Theory 1 49(2012): pp. 59-80

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal seedings in elimination tournaments (2012)
Working Paper: Optimal Seedings in Elimination Tournaments (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenar:20441

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().