This paper compares relative performance evaluation via tournaments to absolute performance evaluation via piece rates when agents are heterogeneous ex post, to make the point that agent heterogeneity compromises the insurance function of tournaments. In particular, we show that the more heterogeneous agents are the less insurance can be offered through tournaments and the less dominant tournaments are over piece rates. Thus, absolute performance piece rates should be preferred when agents are highly heterogeneous. However, even with heterogeneous agents, tournaments become more desirable when the number of agents or the uncertainty about the common shock increases sufficiently.
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Article provided by Economics Bulletin in its journal Economics Bulletin.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Riis, Christian, 2008.
"Efficient Contests,"
MPRA Paper
10906, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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