Tug-of-War in the Laboratory

Cary Deck () and Roman Sheremeta

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Tug-of-war is a multi-battle contest often used to describe extended interactions in economics, management, political science, and other disciplines. While there has been some theoretical work, there is scant empirical evidence regarding behavior in a tug-of-war game. 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. In the first battle of the tug-of-war, subjects exert fewer resources, while in the follow-up battles, they exert more resources than predicted. Also, contrary to the theoretical prediction, resource expenditures tend to increase in the duration of the tug-of-war. Finally, extending the margin necessary to win the tug-of-war causes more discouragement than either a reduction in the prize or greater impatience despite all three having the same expected effect. Potential behavioral explanations for these findings are also discussed.

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: 2015-09-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The tug-of-war in the laboratory (2019)
Working Paper: The Tug-of-War in the Laboratory (2018)
Working Paper: Tug-of-War in the Laboratory (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:67521

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