•   •   •   •

Download the Paper (216 K, PDF file) - February 1, 2005 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
We study the value of commitment in contests and tournaments when there are costs for the follower to observe the leader's behavior. In a contest, the follower can pay to observe the leader's effort but cannot observe the effectiveness of that effort. In a tournament, the follower can pay to observe the effectiveness of the leader's effort but not the effort itself. We show that this distinction matters significantly: When observation is costly, the value of commitment vanishes entirely in sequential and endogenous move contests, regardless of the size of the observation cost. By contrast, in tournaments, the value of commitment is preserved completely, provided that the observation costs are sufficiently small.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
John Morgan and Felix Várdy, "The Value of Commitment in Contests and Tournaments when Observation is Costly" (February 1, 2005). Competition Policy Center. Paper CPC05-052.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/iber/cpc/CPC05-052