Grading on a Curve, and Other Effects of Group Size on All-Pay Auctions

34 Pages Posted: 2 Jun 2014 Last revised: 25 Feb 2024

See all articles by James Andreoni

James Andreoni

University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

Andy Brownback

University of Arkansas

Date Written: May 2014

Abstract

We model contests with a fixed proportion of prizes, such as a grading curve, as all-pay auctions where higher effort weakly increases the likelihood of a prize. We find theoretical predictions for the effect of contest size on effort and test our predictions in a laboratory experiment that compares two-bidder auctions with one prize and 20-bidder auctions with ten prizes. Our results demonstrate that larger contests elicit lower effort by low-skilled students, but higher effort by high-skilled. Large contests also generate more accurate rankings of students and more accurate assignment of high grades to the high-skilled.

Suggested Citation

Andreoni, James and Brownback, Andy, Grading on a Curve, and Other Effects of Group Size on All-Pay Auctions (May 2014). NBER Working Paper No. w20184, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2444571

James Andreoni (Contact Author)

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0508
United States

HOME PAGE: http://econ.ucsd.edu/~jandreon/

Andy Brownback

University of Arkansas ( email )

Fayetteville, AR 72701
United States

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