We analyze the formation of rival leagues in professional team sports, one of the least studied forms of competition in sport. We survey the economic history of professional sports leagues in North America and develop stylized facts about rival league formation and develop a game-theoretic model...

We test the predictions of tournament theory using data from competitions in the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup. Based on data from more than 60 Giant Slalom and Downhill events held over the period 2001-2010, female professional Alpine skiers respond to tournament incentives; times in both events...

This paper investigates the effect of resale allowance on entry strategies in a second price auction with two bidders whose entries are sequential and costly. We first characterize the perfect Bayesian equilibrium in cutoff strategies. We then show that there exists a unique threshold such that...

Patent protection may decrease R&D incentives due to the tournament e ffect. In this paper, we show that patent protection in the presence of a cooperative R&D option always increases the R&D incentive. In addition, this option dominates imitation to increase the R&D incentive under patent...

We analyze a contest with stochastic participation and a prize externality. A unique symmetric equilibrium exists in the contest. We demonstrate that the presence of a prize externality affects individual equilibrium spending but active participants always face the same expected payoff as in a...