Affirmative action through extra prizes

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 disadvant...

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Main Authors: Dahm, Matthias, Esteve-González, Patricia
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53121/
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author Dahm, Matthias
Esteve-González, Patricia
author_facet Dahm, Matthias
Esteve-González, Patricia
author_sort Dahm, Matthias
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description 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.
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spelling nottingham-531212020-05-04T19:42:51Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53121/ Affirmative action through extra prizes Dahm, Matthias Esteve-González, Patricia 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. Elsevier 2018-06-29 Article PeerReviewed Dahm, Matthias and Esteve-González, Patricia (2018) Affirmative action through extra prizes. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization . ISSN 0167-2681 (In Press)
spellingShingle Dahm, Matthias
Esteve-González, Patricia
Affirmative action through extra prizes
title Affirmative action through extra prizes
title_full Affirmative action through extra prizes
title_fullStr Affirmative action through extra prizes
title_full_unstemmed Affirmative action through extra prizes
title_short Affirmative action through extra prizes
title_sort affirmative action through extra prizes
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53121/