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Contests with doping

Author

Listed:
  • Dmitry Ryvkin

    (Department of Economics, Florida State University)

Abstract

Doping, or the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, is an epidemic problem in sports ranging from the Olympics to high school athletics. Sports organizations have been trying numerous approaches to discouraging these activities. This paper presents a theoretical model of doping in a winner-take-all contest environment to help investigate the efficiency of anti-doping enforcement policies. We show that, under fairly general conditions, the optimal frequency of random testing increases in the number of tournament participants. We also find that the presence of even a very small penalty, in addition to expulsion from the contest, makes random testing more effective, especially in large tournaments. Additionally, we find that for a given testing frequency, the optimal level of the penalty can be nonmonotonic in the number of players.

Suggested Citation

  • Dmitry Ryvkin, 2009. "Contests with doping," Working Papers wp2009_06_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:fsu:wpaper:wp2009_06_01
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    File URL: https://coss.fsu.edu/econpapers/wpaper/wp2009_06_01.pdf
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Optimal doping testing
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2009-07-02 13:59:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Jeffrey Cisyk & Pascal Courty, 2024. "An Economic Approach to Sports Injury Policies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 388-419, April.
    2. Glenn Dutcher & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2016. "Don't hate the player, hate the game: Uncovering the foundations of cheating in contests," Working Papers 2016-29, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    3. Volker Robeck, 2014. "Professional Cycling and the Fight against Doping," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201456, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    4. Nicolas Eber, 2012. "Doping and Anti-doping Measures," Chapters, in: Wolfgang Maennig & Andrew Zimbalist (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Mega Sporting Events, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. David Hirschmann, 2017. "May Increasing Doping Sanctions Discourage Entry to the Competition?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(7), pages 720-736, October.
    6. Wu, Qin & Bayer, Ralph-C & Lenten, Liam J.A., 2020. "Conditional Pension Funds to Combat Cheating in Sporting Contests: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Daniel Westmattelmann & Marius Sprenger & Sascha Hokamp & Gerhard Schewe, 2020. "Money matters: The impact of prize money on doping behaviour," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 688-703, October.
    8. Qin Wu & Ralph-C Bayer, 2025. "Does joint liability reduce cheating in contests with agency problems? Theory and experimental evidence," Papers 2511.21090, arXiv.org.
    9. Qin Wu & Raph C-Bayer & Liam Lenten, 2016. "A Comparison of Anti-Doping Measures in Sporting Contests," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2016-11, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    10. Kjetil Haugen, 2023. "The doping dilemma is not the only dilemma in sport," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 40-48.
    11. Edward Cartwright, 2019. "Guilt Aversion and Reciprocity in the Performance-Enhancing Drug Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 535-555, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

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    1. Economic Logic blog

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