DOES SUCCESS BREED SUCCESS? A QUASI-EXPERIMENT ON STRATEGIC MOMENTUM IN DYNAMIC CONTESTS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gauriot, Romain; Page, Lionel
• 署名单位: New York University; New York University Abu Dhabi; University of Technology Sydney
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/uez040
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 3107-3136
• 关键词: competitive environments; psychological momentum; minimax play; Discontinuity; GENDER; equilibrium; performance; incentives; tournament; multistage

摘要

We study how agents adapt their behaviour to variations of incentives in dynamic contests. We investigate a real dynamic contest with large stakes: professional tennis matches. Situations in which balls bounce very close to the court's lines are used as the setting of a quasi-experiment providing random variations in winning probability. We find evidence of a momentum effect for men whereby winning a point has a positive causal impact on the probability to win the next one. This behaviour is compatible with a reaction to the asymmetry of incentives between leaders and followers. We do not find momentum for women.