{"title":"Status classification by lottery contests","authors":"Aner Sela","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.104961","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the optimal design of status classifications in organizational structures under the assumption that agents in a lottery (Tullock) contest care about their relative position. For each such a contest with any number of status categories that is smaller than or equal to the number of agents, we provide sufficient conditions for the optimal partition, which is the distribution of agents among the status categories that maximizes the agents’ symmetric equilibrium effort. We show that, for any number of status categories, in the optimal partition of status categories, the higher the status category, the more agents are included in it. However, in the optimal partition of status categories, a higher status category may not contain more agents than a lower status category when agents receive monetary rewards in addition to the payoff from their relative position (status).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104961"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429212500011X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We study the optimal design of status classifications in organizational structures under the assumption that agents in a lottery (Tullock) contest care about their relative position. For each such a contest with any number of status categories that is smaller than or equal to the number of agents, we provide sufficient conditions for the optimal partition, which is the distribution of agents among the status categories that maximizes the agents’ symmetric equilibrium effort. We show that, for any number of status categories, in the optimal partition of status categories, the higher the status category, the more agents are included in it. However, in the optimal partition of status categories, a higher status category may not contain more agents than a lower status category when agents receive monetary rewards in addition to the payoff from their relative position (status).
期刊介绍:
The European Economic Review (EER) started publishing in 1969 as the first research journal specifically aiming to contribute to the development and application of economics as a science in Europe. As a broad-based professional and international journal, the EER welcomes submissions of applied and theoretical research papers in all fields of economics. The aim of the EER is to contribute to the development of the science of economics and its applications, as well as to improve communication between academic researchers, teachers and policy makers across the European continent and beyond.