IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v28y2012i1p105-118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Affirmative action in contest games

Author

Listed:
  • Franke, Jörg

Abstract

This paper analyzes the incentive effects of affirmative action in competitive environments. Competition is between heterogeneous players in a contest game where heterogeneity might be due to past discrimination. Two policy options are analyzed that tackle the underlying asymmetry: either it is ignored and the contestants are treated equally, or affirmative action is implemented to neutralize the disadvantages of discriminated players. Comparing the induced effort exertion under the two policies reveals that in a two-player contest game the normative neutralization objective of affirmative action coincides with higher effort exertion. However, in the multi-player contest affirmative action might have adverse incentive effects as the participation of additional weak players detrimentally affects effort incentives of other players. These results also obtain under imperfect information of the contest organizer.

Suggested Citation

  • Franke, Jörg, 2012. "Affirmative action in contest games," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 105-118.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:28:y:2012:i:1:p:105-118
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2011.07.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268011000759
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2011.07.002?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela, 2001. "The Optimal Allocation of Prizes in Contests," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 542-558, June.
    3. Andrew Schotter & Keith Weigelt, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 511-539.
    4. Konrad, Kai A., 2002. "Investment in the absence of property rights; the role of incumbency advantages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1521-1537, September.
    5. James Fain, 2009. "Affirmative Action Can Increase Effort," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 30(2), pages 168-175, June.
    6. Elena Krasnokutskaya & Katja Seim, 2011. "Bid Preference Programs and Participation in Highway Procurement Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2653-2686, October.
    7. Stergios Skaperdas, 1996. "Contest success functions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 283-290.
    8. Hanming Fang & Andrea Moro, 2010. "Theories of Statistical Discrimination and Affirmative Action: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 15860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Hao Jia, 2008. "A stochastic derivation of the ratio form of contest success functions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 125-130, June.
    10. Clark, Derek J. & Riis, Christian, 2000. "Allocation efficiency in a competitive bribery game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-124, May.
    11. Richard Cornes & Roger Hartley, 2005. "Asymmetric contests with general technologies," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(4), pages 923-946, November.
    12. Stein, William E, 2002. "Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More Than Two Contestants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 325-336, December.
    13. Lundberg, Shelly & Startz, Richard, 1998. "On the Persistence of Racial Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 292-323, April.
    14. Qiang Fu, 2006. "A Theory of Affirmative Action in College Admissions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 420-428, July.
    15. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    16. Nti, Kofi O., 2004. "Maximum efforts in contests with asymmetric valuations," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 1059-1066, November.
    17. Mark Gradstein, 1995. "Intensity Of Competition, Entry And Entry Deterrence In Rent Seeking Contests," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 79-91, March.
    18. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    19. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603, Decembrie.
    20. Kranich, Laurence, 1994. "Equal Division, Efficiency, and the Sovereign Supply of Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 178-189, March.
    21. Gradstein, Mark & Konrad, Kai A, 1999. "Orchestrating Rent Seeking Contests," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(458), pages 536-545, October.
    22. Roland G. Fryer Jr. & Glenn C. Loury, 2005. "Affirmative Action and Its Mythology," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 147-162, Summer.
    23. Runkel, Marco, 2006. "Total effort, competitive balance and the optimal contest success function," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 1009-1013, December.
    24. Jimmy Chan & Erik Eyster, 2003. "Does Banning Affirmative Action Lower College Student Quality?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 858-872, June.
    25. Caterina Calsamiglia, 2009. "Decentralizing Equality Of Opportunity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 273-290, February.
    26. Froeb, Luke M & Kobayashi, Bruce H, 1996. "Naive, Biased, Yet Bayesian: Can Juries Interpret Selectively Produced Evidence?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 257-276, April.
    27. Marion, Justin, 2007. "Are bid preferences benign? The effect of small business subsidies in highway procurement auctions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1591-1624, August.
    28. Robert Ritz, 2008. "Influencing rent-seeking contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 291-300, June.
    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. 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.
    2. Jörg Franke, 2007. "Does Affirmative Action Reduce Effort Incentives? A Contest Game Analysis," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 711.07, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    3. Barbieri, Stefano & Serena, Marco, 2022. "Biasing dynamic contests between ex-ante symmetric players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-30.
    4. Dahm, Matthias & Esteve-González, Patricia, 2018. "Affirmative action through extra prizes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 123-142.
    5. repec:zbw:rwirep:0185 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ratul Lahkar & Rezina Sultana, 2020. "Affirmative Action in Large Population Contests," Working Papers 40, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    7. Jörg Franke, 2010. "Does Affirmative Action Reduce Effort Incentives? – A Contest Game Analysis," Ruhr Economic Papers 0185, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Drugov, Mikhail & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2017. "Biased contests for symmetric players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 116-144.
    9. 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.
    10. Cedric Duvinage & Peter-J. Jost, 2019. "The Role of Referees in Professional Sports Contests," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(8), pages 1014-1050, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Franke, Jörg & Leininger, Wolfgang & Wasser, Cédric, 2018. "Optimal favoritism in all-pay auctions and lottery contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 22-37.
    13. Beviá, Carmen & Corchón, Luis C., 2013. "Endogenous strength in conflicts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 297-306.
    14. Calsamiglia, Caterina & Franke, Jörg & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2013. "The incentive effects of affirmative action in a real-effort tournament," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 15-31.
    15. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.
    16. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Anastasia Danilov & Martin G. Kocher, 2023. "The Lifecycle of Affirmative Action Policies and Its Effect on Effort and Sabotage Behavior," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 401, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    17. Yosef Mealem & Shmuel Nitzan, 2014. "Equity and effectiveness of optimal taxation in contests under an all-pay auction," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(2), pages 437-464, February.
    18. Yosef Mealem & Shmuel Nitzan, 2012. "Differential Prize Taxation and Structural Discrimination in Contests," CESifo Working Paper Series 3831, CESifo.
    19. Fu, Qiang & Wu, Zenan, 2020. "On the optimal design of biased contests," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    20. Yosef Mealem & Shmuel Nitzan, 2013. "Direct and Structural Discrimination in Contests," CESifo Working Paper Series 4518, CESifo.
    21. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric contest; Affirmative action; Discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)

    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:poleco:v:28:y:2012:i:1:p:105-118. 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/inca/505544 .

    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.