Overconfidence in Economic Contests

This paper studies an economic contest with two participants, who have overconfidence in their own relative abilities. We examine two different sources of overconfidence, overestimation of one's own ability and underestimation of the rival's ability, and compare the behavioral consequences of each situation with the correctly estimated case. The main result is that the former always induces the participants' aggressive behavior, while the latter does not.Overconfidence, economic contest, relative ability, all-pay auction

Endowment Effects in Contests

We design an experiment to test if the manner in which subjects receive the endowment has any bearing on the amount of overbidding in contests. We find that overbidding is significantly higher when subjects are given a large per-experiment endowment rather than when the endowment is given per-period. Risk-aversion and non-monetary utility of winning play important roles in explaining our findings.rent-seeking, contest, experiments, overbidding, endowment

All-Pay Auctions with Handicaps

An all-pay auction in which the winner is determined according to the sum of the bid and the handicap, the latter of which is endowed to the players, is analyzed. The bidding strategy in an equilibrium is explicitly derived as a "piecewise affine transformation" of the equilibrium strategy in the all-pay auction without handicaps. Allocation rule implemented in the equilibrium and revenue comparison are also discussed.

Overbidding and Heterogeneous Behavior in Contest Experiments

We provide an overview of experimental literature on contests and point out the two main phenomena observed in most contest experiments: (i) overbidding relative to the standard Nash equilibrium prediction and (ii) heterogeneous behavior of ex-ante symmetric contestants. Based on the sample of contest experiments that we review, the median overbidding rate is 72%. We provide different explanations for the overbidding phenomenon, including bounded rationality, utility of winning, other-regarding preferences, probability distortion, and the shape of the payoff function. We also provide explanations for heterogeneous behavior of contestants based on differences in preferences towards winning, inequality, risk and losses, and demographic differences. Furthermore, we suggest mechanisms that can reduce overbidding and induce more homogeneous behavior. Finally, we discuss directions for future research

Exclusion in the All-Pay Auction: An Experimental Investigation

Contest or auction designers who want to maximize the overall revenue are frequently con- cerned with a trade-off between contest homogeneity and inclusion of contestants with high valuations. In our experimental study, we find that it is not profitable to exclude the most able contestant in favor of greater homogeneity among the remaining contestants, even if the theoretical exclusion principle predicts otherwise. This is because the strongest contestants con- siderably overexert. A possible explanation is that these contestants are afraid they will regret a low but risky bid if they lose and thus prefer a strategy which gives them a low but secure pay-off.experiments, contests, all-pay auction, heterogeneity, regret aversion