Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/180158 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2017-07
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes data from a tournament, namely the National Hockey League regular scheduled season of games, which provides incentives to increase effort in order to reach the playoffs and incentives to decrease effort once a team has been eliminated from playoff considerations because of the entry draft. Our results show that teams indeed react to these dual incentives - they win more games when there is still a chance to reach the playoffs and lose more after being eliminated from playoff considerations. One can argue that losing more games after having no more chance to reach the playoffs could be the result of lower motivation or disappointment. This is the first study to show that this is not the only explanation for a higher amount of lost games. Instead, we find that there is a concrete strategy behind losing.
Subjects: 
tournaments
dual incentives
National Hockey League
losing strategy
JEL: 
C93
D03
L83
M52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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