November 2002

IZA DP No. 647: Envy and Compassion in Tournaments

修改后的版本发表于:经济学杂志》上and Management Strategy, 2005, 14 (1), 187-207

Many experiments indicate that most individuals are not purely motivated by material self interest, but also care about the well being of others. In this paper we examine tournaments among inequity averse agents, who dislike disadvantageous inequity (envy) and advantageous inequity (compassion). It turns out that inequity averse agents exert higher effort levels than purely self-interested agents for a given prize structure. Contrary to standard tournament theory first-best efforts can not be implemented when prizes are endogenous. Several extensions are studied like the case of spiteful agents, sabotage, asymmetric agents and an application on the choice between vertical and lateral promotions within firms.