Fair and consistent prize allocation in competitions

Bas J. Dietzenbacher, Aleksei Y. Kondratev*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

Given the ranking of competitors, how should the prize endowment be allocated? This paper introduces and axiomatically studies the prize allocation problem. We focus on consistent prize allocation rules satisfying elementary solidarity and fairness principles. In particular, we derive several families of rules satisfying anonymity, order preservation, and endowment monotonicity, which all fall between the equal division rule and the winner-takes-all rule. Our results may help organizers to select the most suitable prize allocation rule for rank-order competitions.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3319-3339
Number of pages22
JournalManagement Science
Volume69
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023

Keywords

  • fair allocation
  • rank-order tournament
  • prize structure
  • tournament design
  • axiomatic analysis
  • consistency

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