Rank-Order Tournaments As Optimum Labour Contracts
This paper, which first suggested the idea of tournament theory, looks at performance related pay. Under conventional systems workers are paid a piece rate - an amount of money that relates to their output, rather than the time they input. Tournament theory suggests that workers can be rewarded by their rank in an organization, suggesting why large salaries are given to senior executives; to provide a 'prize' to those who put in enough effort to garner one of the top positions.
The paper invites the reader to consider the lifetime output of a worker at a firm. This output is dictated by two things - chance and skill. The worker can control his lifetime output by investing in skills early on in life,like studying hard at school and getting good qualifications, but a part of that output will be determined by chance. Partakers in the tournament commit their investment early on in life and are unlikely to know each other previously, within the firm they work in, and may not even know each other within the firm. This prevents collusion or cheating in the tournament.
Looking at the tournament in its simplest form, a two player tournament, where there is a prize for the winner and a smaller consolation for the loser. The incentive to win increases as the difference between the losing and winning prize increases, and therefore the investment of the worker is increased as the difference between the winning and losing prizes is increased. It is in the interest of the firm to increase the spread of prizes. However there is a drawback for the firms. As the workers invest more their costs rise. Competing firms could offer a tournament with a lower spread and attract more workers because they would have to invest less. Therefore, there is an optimal prize spread that firms set, high enough to induce investment but low enough so that the investment is not too expensive for the worker. The prize may take the form of extra cash or a promotion - which means more money, as well as entering a higher level of tournament, where the stakes may be higher.
The idea that the prize may be in the form of a promotion explains why presidents are paid significantly more than vice presidents. In one day a Vice-President may be promoted to President of a company and have his pay tripled. Considering piece rates this seems illogical - his output is unlikely to have tripled in one day. But looking at it using tournament theory it seems logical - he has won the tournament and received his prize - presidency.
Tournament theory is an efficient way of labour compensation when quantifying output is difficult or expensive, but ranking workers is easy. It is also effective as it provides goals for workers and incentivises hard work so that they may one day attain one of the coveted positions at the top. An advantage to workers over a piece rate would be that in the event of a natural disaster they would preserve their wage as their output would go down in absolute terms but stay the same relative to their colleagues. This means that in times of disaster workers could maintain their wage.
Read more about this topic: Tournament Theory
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