Doping und Wettbewerbsintensität

There are systematic incentives to dope within the structure of sports tournaments. A simple decision theory model demonstrates the nature of these incentives and the circumstances in which they are particularly strong. From this model, some empirically testable hypotheses are derived. The most important one, that greater competition between athletes induces more doping, is corroborated by comparing the competitiveness and number of caught dopers in thirteen different athletic sports. The lack of other significant findings may be explained by the decisive role of competitiveness which is more powerful than all other effects and is also a central element of them.