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Strategic thinking in contests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

David Bruner Open the ORCID record for David Bruner [Opens in a new window] ,
Caleb Cox ,
David M. McEvoy  and
Brock Stoddard
David Bruner*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA
Caleb Cox*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
David M. McEvoy*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA
Brock Stoddard*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

We examine motives for ‘overbidding’ in contests between individuals using a “two-headed” approach to decision-making. In “two-headed” contests, subject pairs send suggested bids and messages to a partner. Content analysis of the messages provides insight into an individual’s bidding motives. In addition, we elicit measures of preferences, beliefs, and impulsiveness. We find that beliefs about others’ bids and messages that emphasize winning (i.e., utility of winning) are the most robust predictors of ‘overbidding’. Our results suggest that analyzing communication provides a rich window into an individual’s thought process when making decisions, and can complement insights from elicited values from common decision tasks (Replication materials, including data, do files, and software, are available at https://sites.google.com/view/david-bruner/research).

Keywords

Tullock contestLottery contestWinner-take-allTwo-headed contestTeam contestStrategic thinkingCommunicationOverbidding

JEL classification

C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , June 2022 , pp. 942 - 973
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association 2021

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Footnotes

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-021-09735-6.

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Online Appendix to Accompany: Strategic Thinkingh in Tullock Contests
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