Winning by Losing: Incentive Incompatibility in Multiple Qualifiers

36 Pages Posted: 28 Feb 2013 Last revised: 19 Mar 2017

See all articles by Dmitry Dagaev

Dmitry Dagaev

New Economic School (NES); National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Konstantin Sonin

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 30, 2014

Abstract

In sport tournaments, the rules are presumably structured in a way that any participant cannot benefit by losing instead of winning. We show that tournament systems, consisting of multiple round-robin and knock-out tournaments with non-cumulative prizes, which are ubiquitious around the world, are generically incentive incompatible. We use our model to discuss potential remedies and applications.

Keywords: tournaments, design, rules, football, incentives

JEL Classification: Z20, D71

Suggested Citation

Dagaev, Dmitry and Sonin, Konstantin, Winning by Losing: Incentive Incompatibility in Multiple Qualifiers (November 30, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2225463 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2225463

Dmitry Dagaev

New Economic School (NES) ( email )

100A Novaya Street
Moscow, Skolkovo 143026
Russia

National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )

Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia

Konstantin Sonin (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

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