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On discouraging environments in team contests: Evidence from top‐level beach volleyball
Author(s) -
Sonnabend Hendrik
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
managerial and decision economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.288
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1099-1468
pISSN - 0143-6570
DOI - 10.1002/mde.3153
Subject(s) - contest , competition (biology) , set (abstract data type) , diversity (politics) , ex ante , psychology , demographic economics , economics , political science , computer science , ecology , law , macroeconomics , biology , programming language
This contribution empirically investigates the adverse effects of unbalanced competition and negative feedback in team contests in the field. Using a unique data set sourced from top‐level beach volleyball, I provide evidence for discouragement effects in line with contest theory. The analysis identifies a non‐linear relationship between ex ante contestant heterogeneity and performance. Overall, no gender differences can be found. Finally, it shows that age diversity in teams helps to overcome setbacks.