Rank-order tournaments are usually modeled simultaneously. However, real tournaments are often sequential. We show that agents’ strategic behavior in sequential-move tournaments significantly differ from the one in simultaneous-move tournaments: In a sequential-move tournament with...

We consider a tournament between two workers of different abilities who choose both human capital investment and effort. The employer can influence the workers' behavior by determining the sequence of human capital investments, i.e. the training design. The workers can either invest...

This paper extends the discussion of simultaneous-move tournaments by focusing on the analysis of heterogeneous instead of homogeneous contestants. We show that the principal will not implement first-best efforts even though the agents are risk neutral and not limited in wealth, and despite the...

We consider mergers in an innovation contest between n firms in the presence of synergetic effects. We assume that a merger may affect the R&D efficiency of the merging firm due to increasing returns to scale in R&D. We show that mergers are beneficial for the merging firms even if the...

We consider an R&D contest between n firms in the presence of external spillovers. Our analysis focuses on the effects of these spillovers on joint venture activities between firms. In particular, we are interested in how different budget responsibilities within the research joint venture (RJV)...

We examine the optimal organizational form of project evaluation and implementation under moral hazard. In the evaluation phase, two fallible risk-neutral agents sequentially screen projects. The approved projects are subsequently implemented in the development phase. We show that moral hazard...