Many resource allocation contests have the property that individuals undertake costly actions to appropriate a potentially divisible resource. We design an experiment to compare individuals’ decisions across three resource allocation contests which are isomorphic under riskneutrality. The...

We provide an overview of experimental literature on contests and point out the two main phenomena observed in most contest experiments- (i) overbidding relative to the standard Nash equilibrium prediction and (ii) heterogeneous behavior of ex-ante symmetric contestants. Based on the sample of...

This experiment investigates contests between groups. Each group has one strong player, with a higher valuation for the prize, and two weak players, with lower valuations. In contests where individual efforts are perfect substitutes, all players expend significantly higher efforts than predicted...

In a dynamic contest where it is costly to compete, a player who is behind must decide whether to surrender or to keep fighting in the face of bleak odds. We experimentally examine the game theoretic prediction of last stand behavior in a multi-battle contest with a winning prize and losing...

This study reports an experiment that examines whether groups can better comply with theoretical predictions than individuals in contests. Our experiment replicates previous findings that individual players significantly overbid relative to theoretical predictions, incurring substantial losses....

This paper considers the effect of status or relative income on work effort, combining experimental evidence from a gift-exchange game with the analysis of multi-country ISSP survey data. We find a consistent negative effect of others' incomes on individual effort in both datasets. The...

Using a large (n=543) multi-ethnic sample of laboratory subjects, we systematically investigate the link between the digit ratio (the ratio of the length of the index finger to the length of the ring finger, also called 2D:4D ratio) and two measures of individual risk taking: (i) risk...

In rural economies with missing or incomplete markets, idiosyncratic risk is frequently pooled through informal networks. Idiosyncratic shocks, however, are not limited to private goods but can also restrict an individual from partaking in or benefiting from a collective activity. In these...

Despite its central role in the theory of incentives, empirical evidence of a tradeoff between risk and incentives remains scarce. We reexamine this empirical puzzle in a controlled laboratory environment so as to isolate possible confounding factors encountered in the field. In line with the...

In this paper we experimentally test strategic information transmission between one informed and two uninformed agents in a cheap-talk game. We find evidence of the "disciplining" effect of public communication as compared to private; however, it is much weaker than predicted by the theory....