The Effects of Prize Spread and Noise in Elimination Tournaments: A Natural Field Experiment
在一家零售连锁店进行自然实地实验，检验锦标赛理论关于奖金差距和噪声的预测，发现更凸的奖金分配会以牺牲第一轮绩效为代价提高第二轮绩效，且对过去绩效更稳定的商店影响更大。
We conduct a natural field experiment in a retail chain to test predictions of tournament theory regarding prize spread and noise. A random subset of the 208 stores participates in two-stage elimination tournaments. Tournaments differ in the distribution of prize money across winners of the first and second rounds of the tournament. As predicted, we find that a more convex prize spread increases second-round performance at the expense of first-round performance, although the magnitude of these effects is small. Moreover, the treatment effect is larger for stores with more stable past performance.