IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0227750.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The alliance formation puzzle in contests with capacity-constraints: A test using American football reception-coverage contest data

Author

Listed:
  • Justin Ehrlich
  • Matthew Harmon
  • Shane Sanders

Abstract

We utilize a contest-theoretic model to demonstrate a version of the alliance formation puzzle that aligns with reception-coverage contests in American football. Namely, secondary defenders can opt for single-coverage—1 v 1 contest. Alternatively, they can choose to ally—form double-coverage or 2 v 1 contest with exogenous intra-alliance prize division—when defending a given receiver. In our theoretical treatment, we find that defenses have a lower equilibrium success rate in preventing the receiver from “getting open” under double-coverage than under single-coverage in the absence of capacity constraints. We also find that this success rate paradox is a necessary condition for the alliance formation puzzle. We then test the theoretical treatment by analyzing 8,508 plays of NCAA and NFL game data within a set of fixed effects, logistic regression models that control for receiver, level-of-play, and season-of-play. We find that equilibrium level of defensive success rises significantly and substantially (p-value

Suggested Citation

  • Justin Ehrlich & Matthew Harmon & Shane Sanders, 2020. "The alliance formation puzzle in contests with capacity-constraints: A test using American football reception-coverage contest data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0227750
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227750
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227750
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227750&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0227750?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James W. Boudreau & Lucas Rentschler & Shane Sanders, 2019. "Stag hunt contests and alliance formation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 267-285, June.
    2. James W. Boudreau & Shane Sanders & Nicholas Shunda, 2019. "The role of noise in alliance formation and collusion in conflicts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 249-266, June.
    3. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2012. "Coalitional Colonel Blotto Games with Application to the Economics of Alliances," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 14(4), pages 653-676, August.
    4. Ke, Changxia & Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2013. "Brothers in arms – An experiment on the alliance puzzle," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 61-76.
    5. Konrad, Kai A. & Kovenock, Dan, 2009. "Multi-battle contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 256-274, May.
    6. Baik, Kyung Hwan & Kim, In-Gyu & Na, Sunghyun, 2001. "Bidding for a group-specific public-good prize," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 415-429, December.
    7. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    8. Beekman, Gonne & Cheung, Stephen L. & Levely, Ian, 2017. "The effect of conflict history on cooperation within and between groups: Evidence from a laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 168-183.
    9. Skaperdas, Stergios, 1998. "On the Formation of Alliances in Conflict and Contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 96(1-2), pages 25-42, July.
    10. Katz, Eliakim & Nitzan, Shmuel & Rosenberg, Jacob, 1990. "Rent-Seeking for Pure Public Goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 49-60, April.
    11. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 2001. "Collective Action and the Group Size Paradox," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(3), pages 663-672, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ke, Changxia & Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2013. "Brothers in arms – An experiment on the alliance puzzle," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 61-76.
    2. Herbst, Luisa & Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2015. "Endogenous group formation in experimental contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 163-189.
    3. James W. Boudreau & Lucas Rentschler & Shane Sanders, 2019. "Stag hunt contests and alliance formation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 267-285, June.
    4. Konrad, Kai A., 2011. "Strategic aspects of fighting in alliances," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship & Project "The Future of Fiscal Federalism" SP II 2011-105, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Johannes Münster, 2009. "Group contest success functions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 41(2), pages 345-357, November.
    6. Sheremeta, Roman, 2009. "Essays on Experimental Investigation of Lottery Contests," MPRA Paper 49888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    8. Bo Chen & Shanlin Jin, 2023. "Elimination contests with collusive team players," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(1), pages 61-89, February.
    9. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2011. "Evolutionarily stable in-group favoritism and out-group spite in intergroup conflict," Working Papers evolutionarily_stable, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    10. Francis Bloch, 2009. "Endogenous formation of alliances in conflicts," Working Papers hal-00435387, HAL.
    11. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Behavior In Group Contests: A Review Of Experimental Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 683-704, July.
    12. Changxia Ke, 2011. "Fight Alone or Together? The Need to Belong," Working Papers fight_alone_or_together, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    13. Arye L. Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "Rent Seeking: The Social Cost of Contestable Benefits," CESifo Working Paper Series 6462, CESifo.
    14. Barbieri, Stefano & Malueg, David A., 2016. "Private-information group contests: Best-shot competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 219-234.
    15. Mercier, Jean-François, 2018. "Non-deterministic group contest with private information," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 47-53.
    16. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2011. "Perfect-Substitutes, Best-Shot, and Weakest-Link Contests between Groups," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 27, pages 5-32.
    17. Dripto Bakshi & Indraneel Dasgupta, 2018. "A model of dynamic conflict in ethnocracies," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 147-170, February.
    18. Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2011. "The optimal sorting of players in contests between groups," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 564-572.
    19. Ricardo Nieva, 2019. "Corruption and paradoxes in alliances," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 41-71, March.
    20. Brookins, Philip & Jindapon, Paan, 2021. "Risk preference heterogeneity in group contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0227750. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.