Behavioral and Welfare Effects of Tournaments and Fixed Performance Standard Contracts with Heterogeneous Agents: Some Experimental Evidence

Experimental economics is used to compare tournaments (T) and fixed performance contracts (F) when agents have heterogeneous costs. Our primary findings were: (1) There is no statistical difference in average pooled effort (effort by high ability and low ability subjects are pooled together to get an aggregate average) under T and F contracts, (2) on average, effort exerted by high ability agents is considerably higher than effort exerted by low ability agents under both types of contracts, (3) average pooled payoff for the subjects is affected by the type of contract used. Statistical analysis of the results revealed that high ability subjects generally benefit from tournaments whereas low ability agents are harmed by tournaments. Only in the case where common shocks are dominant would low ability agents not be negatively impacted by tournaments.