Turf Wars

62 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2014

See all articles by Helios Herrera

Helios Herrera

HEC Montreal

Ernesto Reuben

New York University (NYU) - New York University, Abu Dhabi; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Michael M. Ting

Columbia University - Department of Political Science

Abstract

Turf wars commonly occur in environments where competition undermines collaboration. We develop a game theoretic model and experimental test of turf wars. The model explores how team production incentives ex post affect team formation decisions ex ante. In the game, one agent decides whether to share jurisdiction over a project with other agents. Agents with jurisdiction decide whether to exert effort and receive a reward based on their relative performance. Hence, sharing can increase joint production but introduces competition for the reward. We find that collaboration has a non-monotonic relationship with both productivity and rewards. The laboratory experiment confirms the model's main predictions. We also explore extensions of the basic model, including one where each agent's productivity is private information.

Keywords: turf war, bureaucracy, jurisdiction, competition, information withholding

JEL Classification: D73, D74, D82

Suggested Citation

Herrera, Helios and Reuben, Ernesto and Ting, Michael M., Turf Wars. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8585, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2520740 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2520740

Helios Herrera (Contact Author)

HEC Montreal ( email )

3000, ch. de la Côte-Ste-Catherine
Montréal, Quebec H3T 2A7
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://www.hec.ca/en/profs/helios.herrera.html

Ernesto Reuben

New York University (NYU) - New York University, Abu Dhabi ( email )

PO Box 129188
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Michael M. Ting

Columbia University - Department of Political Science ( email )

MC3320
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

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