Does High Performance Bespeak Doping Abuse? A Performance Related Strategy for Anti-Doping Agencies

Abstract

We present a theoretical model for performance-based testing. In this model, the doping agency observes either high or low performance from heterogeneous athletes and then decides whom to test. We show that there is an interior equilibrium with a positive testing probability for high and low performers. Counter-intuitively, low performers will be tested more often than high performers. We show that less-able athletes will dope more often than more-able athletes. Furthermore, we show that the overall doping abuse is independent of the distribution of talent, but only depends on the agency’s benefits and costs of doping tests.