Affirmative action through extra prizes

Dahm, Matthias and Esteve-Gonzalez, Patricia (2018) Affirmative action through extra prizes. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 153. pp. 123-142. ISSN 0167-2681

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Abstract

Some affirmative action policies establish that a set of disadvantaged competitors has access to an extra prize. We analyse the effects of creating an extra prize by reducing the prize in the main competition. Contestants differ in ability and agents with relatively low ability belong to a disadvantaged minority. All contestants compete for the main prize, but only disadvantaged agents can win the extra prize. We show that an extra prize is a powerful tool to ensure participation of disadvantaged agents. Moreover, for intermediate levels of the disadvantage of the minority, introducing an extra prize increases total equilibrium effort compared to a standard contest. Thus, even a contest designer not interested in affirmative action might establish an extra prize in order to enhance competition.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Additional Information:
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 153, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.06.016
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1407
Subjects:
?? asymmetric contestequality of opportunityaffirmative actiondiscriminationprize structureexclusion principleorganizational behavior and human resource managementeconomics and econometrics ??
ID Code:
126697
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
06 Aug 2018 15:42
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
13 Sep 2024 10:28