Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: An Experimental Study of Contest Games with Asymmetry and Heterogeneous Groups

本项目采用实验方法研究个体在不同竞赛游戏中的行为。竞赛游戏被定义为个人或团体通过扩大努力或成本来赢得特定奖励的情况。例子包括从大学录取和晋升竞争，到不同国家和政党花费资源为自己的利益游说的全球关系。本项目由三部分组成。第一部分主要研究了不同参与方之间的不对称估值问题以及竞争时机的影响。竞争理论预测，更多的非对称竞争比对称竞争产生更高的竞争。我们还发现，时间的影响很大程度上取决于玩家做出决定的顺序。这些预测是通过实验室实验来验证的。本课题第二部分研究异质群体之间的竞争。现有的文献大多建立在投票模型上，其中受试者的选择空间仅限于二元决策：是否投票。相比之下，在这个项目中，受试者可以在连续的战略空间中做出决策。群体间的异质性源于每个群体内玩家之间的差异。该理论推导出以下可检验的假设：只有每组中评价最高的参与者才会在均衡中扩大积极努力；贡献水平和比赛结果与玩家数量无关；而且贡献不取决于组中估值的分布，而只取决于每个组中最高的估值。最后，项目的第三部分使用实验室实验来调查几种替代竞赛的效率和潜在的浪费努力：四种同时和三种顺序竞赛。同时举行的比赛包括一场大赛、两场多奖比赛（等分和不等分）和一场由两场分站赛组成的比赛。顺序竞赛包括顺序淘汰赛、两阶段树形竞赛和两阶段带结转树形竞赛。替代理论和行为模型，如不平等厌恶理论和量子反应均衡被用来解释受试者偏离理论预测

This project uses experimental methods to investigate individual behavior in different contest games. A contest game is defined as a situation in which individuals or groups compete with one another by expanding effort or cost to win a specific prize. Examples range from college admissions and competition for a promotion, to global relationships in which different countries and political parties expend resources to lobby their own interests.This project consists of three parts. The first part targets the issue of asymmetric valuations between different payers and the effect of timing in contests. Contest theory predicts that more asymmetric contests generate higher competition than symmetric contests. It is also found that the effect of timing crucially depends on the order in which players make their decisions. These predictions are tested using laboratory experiments.The second part of this project studies competition between heterogeneous groups. The existing literature is built mostly on voting models in which a subjects' choice space is limited to a binary decision: whether to cast a vote or not. By contrast, in this project subjects can make their decisions on continuous strategy space. The heterogeneity between groups arises from the differences between the players within each group. The following testable hypothesis are derived from the theory: only players with the highest valuation in each group expand positive efforts in the equilibrium; contribution levels and the outcome of the contest game are independent of the number of players; and contributions do not depend on the distribution of the valuations in the group, but only on the highest valuation in each group. Finally, the third part of the project uses laboratory experiments to investigate the efficiency and potentially wasteful efforts of several alternative contests: four simultaneous and three sequential contests. The simultaneous contests include a grand contest, two multiple prize settings (equal and unequal prizes), and a contest which consist of two subcontests. The sequential contests are a sequential elimination contest, a two-stage tree contest, and a two-stage tree contest with carryovers. Alternative theoretical and behavioral models such as inequality-averse theory and quantal response equilibrium are used to explain subjects' deviations from the theoretical predictions