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Optimal Risk Taking in an Uneven Tournament Game with Risk Averse Players

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Author Info
Matthias Kräkel (Department of Economics, BWL II, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24-42, D-53113 Bonn. Tel: +49-228-739211, Fax: +49-228-739210, Germany, e-mail: m.kraekel@uni-bonn.de)

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Abstract

We analyze the optimal choice of risk in a two-stage tournament game between two players that have different concave utility functions. At the first stage, both players simultaneously choose risk. At the second stage, both observe overall risk and simultaneously decide on effort or investment. The results show that those two effects which mainly determine risk taking — an effort effect and a likelihood effect — are strictly interrelated. This finding sharply contrasts with existing results on risk taking in tournament games with symmetric equilibrium efforts where such linkage can never arise. Hence, previous findings based on symmetry at the effort stage turn out to be nongeneric.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich in its series Discussion Papers with number 200.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:200

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Related research
Keywords: asymmetric equilibria; rank-order tournaments; risk taking;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics

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