IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v255y2025ics0165176525003428.html

Optimal matching in best-of-three team contests

Author

Listed:
  • Cai, Yichuan

Abstract

We study optimal matching strategies in best-of-three team contests, where a contest organizer assigns three players of varying abilities from each team to three pairwise battles conducted simultaneously or sequentially. The team winning at least two battles receives the prize. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of “leveling the playing field”, we show that pairing similar-ability players maximizes total expected effort only when within-team ability gaps are relatively small. However, when top players value the prize sufficiently high, strategically mismatching the weaker players increase the importance of the high-ability battle, thus increasing total effort. This finding is robust across various contest success functions, asymmetric teams, and best-of-k contests.

Suggested Citation

  • Cai, Yichuan, 2025. "Optimal matching in best-of-three team contests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525003428
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525003428
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112505?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu, 2020. "On Equilibrium Player Ordering In Dynamic Team Contests," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1830-1844, October.
    2. Konishi, Hideo & Pan, Chen-Yu & Simeonov, Dimitar, 2022. "Equilibrium player choices in team contests with multiple pairwise battles," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 274-287.
    3. Gao, Lei & Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zhewei, 2025. "Move orders in contests: Equilibria and winning chances," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 436-468.
    4. Feng, Xin & Jiao, Qian & Kuang, Zhonghong & Lu, Jingfeng, 2024. "Optimal prize design in team contests with pairwise battles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    5. Michael R. Baye & Dan Kovenock & Casper G. Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 209-223, Springer.
    6. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu & Yue Pan, 2015. "Team Contests with Multiple Pairwise Battles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2120-2140, July.
    7. Barbieri, Stefano & Serena, Marco, 2022. "Biasing dynamic contests between ex-ante symmetric players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-30.
    8. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    9. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu, 2012. "The optimal multi-stage contest," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 351-382, October.
    10. Klein, Arnd Heinrich & Schmutzler, Armin, 2017. "Optimal effort incentives in dynamic tournaments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 199-224.
    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. Barbieri, Stefano & Serena, Marco, 2024. "Winner's effort in multi-battle team contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 526-556.
    2. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    3. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.
    4. Aner Sela & Oz Tsahi, 2020. "On the optimal allocation of prizes in best-of-three all-pay auctions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(2), pages 255-273, August.
    5. Klumpp, Tilman & Konrad, Kai A. & Solomon, Adam, 2019. "The dynamics of majoritarian Blotto games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 402-419.
    6. Bose, Gautam & Konrad, Kai A., 2020. "Devil take the hindmost: Deflecting attacks to other defenders," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    7. Lu, Jingfeng & Lu, David, 2020. "Task arrangement in team competitions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. Häfner, Samuel, 2017. "A tug-of-war team contest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 372-391.
    9. Lauber, Arne & March, Christoph & Sahm, Marco, 2023. "Optimal and fair prizing in sequential round-robin tournaments: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 30-51.
    10. Aner Sela, 2016. "Two Stage Contests With Effort-Dependent Rewards," Working Papers 1612, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    11. Feng, Xin & Lu, Jingfeng, 2018. "How to split the pie: Optimal rewards in dynamic multi-battle competitions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 82-95.
    12. Maria Arbatskaya & Hideo Konishi, 2025. "Dynamic team contests with complementary efforts," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 29(3), pages 611-633, September.
    13. Derek J. Clark & Tore Nilssen & Jan Yngve Sand, 2020. "Gaining advantage by winning contests," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 24(1), pages 23-38, June.
    14. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    15. Netanel Nissim & Aner Sela, 2020. "The Third Place Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 64-86, January.
    16. Yixuan Shi, 2025. "Campaign Contests in Mixed Electoral Systems," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2025-08, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    17. Barbieri, Stefano & Serena, Marco, 2022. "Biasing dynamic contests between ex-ante symmetric players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-30.
    18. Emin Karagözoglu & Cagri Saglam & Agah R. Turan, 2020. "Tullock Brings Perseverance and Suspense to Tug-of-War," CESifo Working Paper Series 8103, CESifo.
    19. Enzo Brox & Daniel Goller, 2024. "Tournaments, Contestant Heterogeneity and Performance," Papers 2401.05210, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    20. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:eee:ecolet:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525003428. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.