The value of commitment in contests and tournaments when observation is costly

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: John, Morgan; Vardy, Felix
• 署名单位: International Monetary Fund; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2006.10.009
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 326-338
• 关键词: Contests; tournaments; rent-seeking; COMMITMENT; costly leader games; noisy leader games

摘要

We study the value of commitment in sequential contests when the follower faces small costs to observe the leader's effort. We show that the value of commitment vanishes entirely in this class of games. By contrast, in sequential tournaments-games where, at a cost, the follower can observe the effectiveness of the leader's effort-the value of commitment is preserved completely provided that the observation costs are sufficiently small. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.