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Does Success Breed Success? a Quasi-Experiment on Strategic Momentum in Dynamic Contests

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  • Romain Gauriot
  • Lionel Page

Abstract

We study how agents adapt their behaviour to variations of incentives in dynamic contests. We investigate a real dynamic contest with large stakes: professional tennis matches. Situations in which balls bounce very close to the court’s lines are used as the setting of a quasi-experiment providing random variations in winning probability. We find evidence of a momentum effect for men whereby winning a point has a positive causal impact on the probability to win the next one. This behaviour is compatible with a reaction to the asymmetry of incentives between leaders and followers. We do not find momentum for women.

Suggested Citation

  • Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page, 2019. "Does Success Breed Success? a Quasi-Experiment on Strategic Momentum in Dynamic Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3107-3136.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:624:p:3107-3136.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/uez040
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    Cited by:

    1. Morgulev, Elia & Azar, Ofer H. & Galily, Yair & Bar-Eli, Michael, 2020. "The role of initial success in competition: An analysis of early lead effects in NBA overtimes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Derek J. Clark & Tore Nilssen, 2021. "Competitive balance when winning breeds winners," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(2), pages 363-384, February.
    3. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Stefano Barbieri & Marco Serena, 2020. "Fair Representation in Primaries: Heterogeneity and the New Hampshire Effect," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2020-07, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    5. Evans, Andrew E. & Crosby, Paul & Shin, Sunny Y., 2023. "Psychological momentum among non-experts: Evidence from club golfers," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Nicolas Houy & Jean-Philippe Nicolaï & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Always doing your best? Effort and performance in dynamic settings," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 249-286, October.
    7. Bouke Klein Teeselink & Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder, 2020. "Does Losing Lead to Winning? An Empirical Analysis for Four Different Sports," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-049/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Meier, Philippe & Flepp, Raphael & Ruedisser, Maximilian & Franck, Egon, 2020. "Separating psychological momentum from strategic momentum: Evidence from men’s professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Paserman, M. Daniele, 2023. "Gender Differences in Performance in Competitive Environments? Evidence from Professional Tennis Players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 590-609.
    10. Ambroise Descamps & Changxia Ke & Lionel Page, 2022. "How success breeds success," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), pages 355-385, January.
    11. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath, 2020. "Escalation in conflict games: on beliefs and selection," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(3), pages 750-787, September.
    12. Mario Lackner & Michael Weichselbaumer, 2021. "Can barely winning lead to losing? Evidence for a substantial gender gap in psychological momentum," Economics working papers 2021-19, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    13. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    14. Marius Ötting & Christian Deutscher & Carl Singleton & Luca De Angelis, 2023. "Gambling on Momentum in Contests," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-08, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    15. Fumagalli, Elena & Fumagalli, Laura, 2022. "Subjective well-being and the gender composition of the reference group: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 196-219.
    16. Enzo Brox & Daniel Goller, 2024. "Tournaments, Contestant Heterogeneity and Performance," Papers 2401.05210, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    17. Hendrik Sonnabend, 2020. "On discouraging environments in team contests: Evidence from top‐level beach volleyball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(6), pages 986-997, September.
    18. Deutscher, Christian & Neuberg, Lena & Thiem, Stefan, 2023. "Who’s afraid of the GOATs? - Shadow effects of tennis superstars," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    19. 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).
    20. 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.
    21. Morgulev, Elia, 2023. "Streakiness is not a theory: On “momentums” (hot hands) and their underlying mechanisms," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    22. Lu, Jiaxuan, 2023. "The economics of China’s between-city height competition: A regression discontinuity approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    23. Bouke Klein Teeselink & Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder, 2023. "Does Losing Lead to Winning? An Empirical Analysis for Four Sports," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 513-532, January.
    24. Lackner, Mario & Weichselbaumer, Michael, 2023. "Can barely winning lead to losing? Gender and past performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 258-274.
    25. Craig A. Depken II & John M. Gandar & Dmitry A. Shapiro, 2022. "Set-level Strategic and Psychological Momentum in Best-of-three-set Professional Tennis Matches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(5), pages 598-623, June.

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