In this article, the author incorporates fair play norms into the analysis of the basic performance-enhancing drug game proposed in 2004 by Haugen (in the Journal of Sports Economics). In some cases, it leads to a modification in the very nature of the game, switching it from a prisoner's dilemma to a stag hunt game characterized by two pure-strategy equilibria: a risk-dominant doping equilibrium but also a payoff-dominant no-doping one. In such cases, the main problem for athletes becomes to coordinate their intentions and, hence, find a reliable coordinating device. The author suggests that some kind of preplay communication about doping and formal agreements through an antidoping charter may serve as such a device.

This article argues that the antidoping policy faces a credibility problem very similar to that identified for the conduct of the monetary policy. Using a theoretical framework à la Barro-Gordon in which athletes form rational expectations about authorities’ effort against doping, the author shows that strong antidoping policies are not credible unless conducted by a completely independent World Anti-Doping Agency, provided that its president has either a very strong aversion to doping or a wage contract that incites him or her to implement the announced level of effort.

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