Boudreau, KevinLakhani, KarimMenietti, Michael2014-01-132014-01-13Boudreau, Kevin J., Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael E. Menietti. "Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design." <I>RAND Journal of Economics</I> 47, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 140–165. (This was Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 14-014, August 2013.)0741-6261http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11508222Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the performance response to added contestants varies non-monotonically across contestants of different abilities, most respond negatively to competition, and highest-skilled contestants respond positively. In counterfactual simulations, we interpret a number of tournament design policies (number of competitors, prize allocation and structure, divisionalization, open entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another.en-USJournal Article2014-01-1310.1111/1756-2171.12121/full