Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16503
Authors: Aner Sela
Abstract: We study elimination tournaments with n stages and 2n symmetric players. The players have heterogeneous effort budgets that decrease within the stages proportionally to the efforts allocated in the previous stages such that for each effort unit that a player allocates, he loses α (the fatigue parameter) units of effort from his budget. We show that if the fatigue parameter α is larger than (1/n), the players equally allocate their efforts over all the first n-1 stages, and only in the final stage, they exert a lower effort.
Keywords: elimination tournaments; knockout tournaments
JEL Codes: D72; D82; D44
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| fatigue parameter (C23) | equal effort allocation across first n-1 stages (D29) |
| equal effort allocation across first n-1 stages (D29) | lower effort in final stage (D29) |
| effort allocation (D29) | tournament outcomes (L83) |
| fatigue parameter (C23) | effort allocation (D29) |
| effort allocation (D29) | strategic decisions in subsequent stages (L21) |