Sabotage in contests: A survey

Modak Chowdhury, Subhasish and Gurtler, Oliver (2015) Sabotage in contests: A survey. Public Choice, 164 (1). pp. 135-155. ISSN 0048-5829

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Abstract

A contest is a situation in which individuals expend irretrievable resources to win valuable prize(s). ‘Sabotage’ is a deliberate and costly act of damaging a rival’s' likelihood of winning the contest. Sabotage can be observed in, e.g., sports, war, promotion tournaments, political or marketing campaigns. In this article, we provide a model and various perspectives on such sabotage activities and review the economics literature analyzing the act of sabotage in contests. We discuss the theories and evidence highlighting the means of sabotage, why sabotage occurs, and the effects of sabotage on individual players and on overall welfare, along with possible mechanisms to reduce sabotage. We note that most sabotage activities are aimed at the ablest player, the possibility of sabotage reduces productive effort exerted by the players, and sabotage may lessen the effectiveness of public policies, such as affirmative action, or information revelation in contests. We discuss various policies that a designer may employ to counteract sabotage activities. We conclude by pointing out some areas of future research.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	11 Aug 2015 15:02
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 01:08
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/54052
DOI:	10.1007/s11127-015-0264-9

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