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

本课题采用实验的方法来研究不同竞赛游戏中的个体行为。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品而相互竞争的情况。例如，从大学入学和晋升竞争，到不同国家和政党花费资源游说各自利益的全球关系。这个项目由三个部分组成。第一部分针对不同付款人之间的估值不对称问题以及比赛中时机的影响。竞赛理论预测，更多的不对称竞争比对称竞争产生更高的竞争。研究还发现，时机的影响很大程度上取决于玩家做出决定的顺序。这些预测通过实验室实验得到了验证。这个项目的第二部分研究了不同群体之间的竞争。现有的文献大多建立在投票模型的基础上，在该模型中，受试者的选择空间被限制为一个二元决定：是否投票。相比之下，在这个项目中，主体可以在连续的策略空间上做出决定。组之间的异质性源于组内球员之间的差异。该理论得出以下可检验假设：只有每组中估值最高的玩家才能在均衡中扩大正努力；贡献水平和竞赛博弈的结果与玩家数量无关；贡献不取决于组中估值的分布，而只取决于每组中最高的估值。最后，该项目的第三部分使用实验室实验来调查几种替代竞争的效率和潜在的浪费：四种同时竞争和三种顺序竞争。同时进行的比赛包括一场盛大的比赛，两个多奖设置(等奖和不等奖)，以及由两个分项比赛组成的比赛。顺序比赛是顺序淘汰赛、两阶段树比赛和两阶段带结转的树比赛。可供选择的理论和行为模型，如不平等厌恶理论和量子反应均衡被用来解释受试者与理论预测的偏差。

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