Generalized difference-form contests

The present paper analyzes multi-player contests where participants compete for a valuable prize and their probability of victory depends on the difference between their effective efforts. These difference-form contests have appealing properties but remain largely understudied due to the non-existence of pure-strategy equilibria and the preemption effect they display (e.g. Che and Gale, 2000). We show that these features rest critically on the assumption of full linearity. Pure strategy equilibria with multiple active contestants exist under mild conditions as soon as full linearity is assumed away. In addition, we show that symmetric difference-form contests are equilibrium equivalent to rank-order tournaments à la Lazear and Rosen (1981) and characterize the level of total expenditures as a function of the heterogeneity in participants’ valuations of victory

Gazes and numbers: Two experiments in strategic sophistication and gender bias

We investigate whether gender differences in strategic behavior depend on the perceived gender bias of strategic interactions. We use two weakly dominance solvable games where a prize is at stake. The first one is the two-person beauty contest, where strategies are numbers and players must perform mathematical operations. The second is the novel "gaze coach game", where strategies are photographs of the eye region and the two players must assign emotional states to these images. We find that males display significantly higher strategic sophistication than females in the first game but not in the second one, which is perceived to be female biased. However, females are underrepresented among top performers in both games

El coste de uso del capital en la explicación del boom de la inversión europea de posguerra

Post-war Europe provides an opportunity to study the importance of relative prices of capital, and the user cost of capital in particular, in explaining the convergence in investment rates between countries of similar "social capabilities" and income levels. After Second World War, at time as a new international order was established, European countries experienced a rapid process of income growth and convergence. In the interpretation of this process a prominent role has been attributed to technological progress and "catch-up" to the technological leader, the United States. Investment decisions are the way for embodying new technological progress, but investment takes place only when incentive exists. Among these incentives, recent empirical literature on economic growth highlights the role of relative prices of capital in explaining differences in investment rates and income growth between countries with very different income levels. But when we reduce the sample to countries closed in income levels and "social capabilities", we can demonstrate that, although the relative cost of capital converged over time and could help to explain income convergence, other factors were more significant in explaining the increase in investment rates. More important than the user cost of capital in the investment decision, was general prosperity caused by the demand increase

International technology diffusion through patents during the second half of the XXth century

This paper analyzes the impact of domestic and foreign technology in explaining Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth during the second half of the 20th century in some advanced countries (the U.S., France, Germany, the U.K. and Japan). To carry out this objective we use new dataset for the stock of knowledge built on the basis of the Perpetual Inventory Method over patents data for 150 years. To empirically address the aim of this research, we extend Coe and Helpman (1995) empirical specification by including human capital. Our results point out that: first, both domestic and foreign stocks of knowledge are significant in explaining TFP growth; second, the imports of knowledge have a less significant effect than the domestic stock of knowledge for France, Germany and Japan. Further, our results point that human capital plays a superior role in explaining TFP growth in the most advanced countries. En este trabajo se analiza el efecto de la tecnología doméstica y extranjera en la evolución de la Productividad Total de los Factores (PTF) para una muestra de países avanzados (Estados Unidos, Francia, Alemania, Reino Unido y Japón) durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Para ello se construye una base de datos en la que se mide la tecnología, tanto doméstica como importada, a través de las patentes acumuladas desde 1850 siguiendo el método del inventario permanente. Empíricamente, se estima una versión ampliada de la especificación de Coe and Helpman (1995) en la que incluye la variable capital humano. Los principales resultados permiten concluir que: primero, que tanto la tecnología doméstica como la importada son significativas en la explicación del crecimiento de la PTF; segundo, que las importaciones de tecnología tienen un efecto menor sobre la PTF que la generación doméstica de tecnología en países como Francia, Alemania y Japón, mientras que en Estados Unidos sólo es significativa la tecnología doméstica. Y por último, los resultados revelan una elevada contribución del capital humano en la explicación de la PTF de los países más avanzados.Europa, segunda mitad del siglo XX, transferencia internacional de tecnología, patentes, productividad, técnicas de cointegración Europe, second half XXth century, international technology transfer, patent, productivity, cointegration techniques

Gender, competition and performance: evidence from chess players

This paper studies gender differences in performance in a male‐dominated competitive environment chess tournaments. We find that the gender composition of chess games affects the behaviors of both men and women in ways that worsen the outcomes for women. Using a unique measure of within‐game quality of play, we show that women make more mistakes when playing against men. Men, however, play equally well against male and female opponents. We also find that men persist longer before losing to women. Our results shed some light on the behavioral changes that lead to differential outcomes when the gender composition of competitions varies

Ultracold chemical reactions of a single Rydberg atom in a dense gas

Within a dense environment ($\rho \approx 10^{14}\,$atoms/cm$^3$) at ultracold temperatures ($T < 1\,\mu{}\text{K}$), a single atom excited to a Rydberg state acts as a reaction center for surrounding neutral atoms. At these temperatures almost all neutral atoms within the Rydberg orbit are bound to the Rydberg core and interact with the Rydberg atom. We have studied the reaction rate and products for $nS$ $^{87}$Rb Rydberg states and we mainly observe a state change of the Rydberg electron to a high orbital angular momentum $l$, with the released energy being converted into kinetic energy of the Rydberg atom. Unexpectedly, the measurements show a threshold behavior at $n\approx 100$ for the inelastic collision time leading to increased lifetimes of the Rydberg state independent of the densities investigated. Even at very high densities ($\rho\approx4.8\times 10^{14}\,\text{cm}^{-3}$), the lifetime of a Rydberg atom exceeds $10\,\mu\text{s}$ at $n > 140$ compared to $1\,\mu\text{s}$ at $n=90$. In addition, a second observed reaction mechanism, namely Rb$_2^+$ molecule formation, was studied. Both reaction products are equally probable for $n=40$ but the fraction of Rb$_2^+$ created drops to below 10$\,$% for $n\ge90$.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Do personality traits affect productivity? Evidence from the lab

While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. In this paper, we take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to test whether this relationship operates through productivity, and isolate this mechanism from other channels such as bargaining ability or self-selection into jobs. Using a gender neutral real-effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance. We find that more neurotic subjects perform worse, and that more conscientious individuals perform better. These findings are in line with previous survey studies and suggest that at least part of the effect of personality on labor market outcomes operates through productivity. In addition, we find evidence that gender and university major affect the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance