Designing Contests between Heterogeneous Contestants: An Experimental Study of Tie-Breaks and Bid-Caps in All-Pay Auctions

41 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016 Last revised: 23 Aug 2018

See all articles by Aniol Llorente-Saguer

Aniol Llorente-Saguer

Queen Mary University of London

Roman M. Sheremeta

Case Western Reserve University

Nora Szech

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: August 21, 2018

Abstract

Contests are well-established mechanisms for encouraging innovation, incentivizing workers, and advancing R&D. A well-known theoretical result in the contest literature is that greater heterogeneity decreases performance of contestants because of the “discouragement effect.” Leveling the playing field by favoring weaker contestants through strict bid-caps and favorable tie-breaking rules can reduce discouragement and increase the designer’s revenue. We test these predictions in a laboratory experiment. Our data confirm that placing bid-caps and using favorable tie-breaking rules significantly diminishes discouragement in weaker contestants. The impact on revenue is more intricate. In contrast to theory, a strict bid-cap does not increase revenue, but a mild bid-cap can increase revenue even when not predicted by theory. Our data also show that tie-breaking rules seem to have little impact on the designer’s revenue: the encouragement of weaker contestants is offset by stronger contestants competing less aggressively. We discuss deviations from the Nash predictions in light of different behavioral approaches.

Keywords: all-pay auction, rent-seeking, bid-caps, tie-breaks, contest design

JEL Classification: C72, C91, D72

Suggested Citation

Llorente-Saguer, Aniol and Sheremeta, Roman M. and Szech, Nora, Designing Contests between Heterogeneous Contestants: An Experimental Study of Tie-Breaks and Bid-Caps in All-Pay Auctions (August 21, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2766732 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2766732

Aniol Llorente-Saguer

Queen Mary University of London ( email )

Lincoln's Inn Fields
Mile End Rd.
London, E1 4NS
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/aniollls/

Roman M. Sheremeta (Contact Author)

Case Western Reserve University ( email )

10900 Euclid Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44106
United States

Nora Szech

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ( email )

Kaiserstraße 12
Karlsruhe, Baden Württemberg 76131
Germany

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