Arbeitspapier
An envelope approach to tournament design
Optimal rank-order tournaments have traditionally been studied using a first-order approach. The present analysis relies instead on the construction of an "upper envelope" over all incentive compatibility conditions. lt turns out that the first-order approach is not innocuous. For example, in contrast to the traditional understanding, tournaments may be dominated by piece rates even if workers are risk-neutral. The paper also offers a strikingly simple characterization of the optimal tournament for quadratic costs and CARA utility, as well as an extension to large tournaments.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Working Paper ; No. 184
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
Economics of Contract: Theory
Organization of Production
- Subject
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Rank-order tournaments
first-order approach
envelope theorem
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Ewerhart, Christian
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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University of Zurich, Department of Economics
- (where)
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Zurich
- (when)
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2014
- DOI
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doi:10.5167/uzh-103965
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Ewerhart, Christian
- University of Zurich, Department of Economics
Time of origin
- 2014