The effect of competition on risk taking in contests
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The effect of competition on risk taking in contests
zbMATH Open document ID: 1418.91140
author: Lorenzo Spadoni
author: Jan Potters
published in: Games
publication date: 2018-12-10T00:00:00Z
review text: Summary: We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, the effect of competition on risk taking in a contest in which players only decide on the level of risk they wish to take. Taking more risk implies a chance of a higher performance, but also implies a higher chance of failure. We vary the level of competition in two ways: by varying the number of players (2 players versus 8 players), and by varying the sensitivity of the contest to differences in performance (lottery contest versus all-pay auction). Our results show that there is a significant interaction effect between the two treatments, suggesting that players are particularly prone to take more risks if both the number of players and the sensitivity to performance are higher.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A90
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91-06
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91B26
zbMATH DE Number: 6991186
zbMATH Keywords: risk taking
zbMATH Keywords: competition
zbMATH Keywords: contests
zbMATH Keywords: experiments
describes a project that uses: Z-Tree
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: g9030072
OpenAlex ID: W2891217640
cites work: Q5323812
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cites work: The all-pay auction with complete information
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Wikidata QID: Q129217889
DOI: 10.3390/G9030072
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6991186