Denter, P. and Sisak, D. (2016). Head Starts in Dynamic Tournaments? Economics Letters, 149:94--97.

Affiliated author

Dana Sisak
Publication year

2016

Journal

Economics Letters

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In promotion contests or other tournament-like situations, a principal may attach some value to the highest effort expended by an agent. We show that whenever agents interact over multiple periods, awarding a head start to one of them is optimal even with completely symmetric agents. Awarding a small head start increases maximum individual effort without decreasing aggregate effort.