Splash with a teammate: Peer effects in high-stakes tournaments

Abstract

This paper studies peer effects on individual performance among elite athletes in high-stakes tournaments. I ask whether the presence of a teammate affects athletes' performance using data from the latest seven World Swimming Championships. To identify causal effects I apply a regression discontinuity design by comparing athletes' performance in the finals when their teammate barely qualified and barely not qualified for the same final. Female athletes accompanied by a teammate swam 0.41%-0.56% of the average time faster, or ranked by 0.75-1.16 higher in the final. Male athletes' performance is unaffected. Potential channels and gender differences are discussed.

Peers and Motivation at Work: Evidence from a Firm Experiment in Malawi

“…A large literature provides compelling evidence that a worker's own performance depends on her peers and social interactions (Herbst and Mas 2015). Several studies show that worker effort is sensitive to the social pressure that arises when there are externalities from effort due to joint production and team compensation (Mas and Moretti 2009;Gould and Winter 2009;Bandiera, Barankay, and Rasul 2013;Babcock et al 2015;Arcidiacono, Kinsler, and Price 2016;Battisti 2017;Cornelissen, Dustmann, and Schonberg 2017;Jiang 2020;Amodio and Martinez-Carrasco 2018;Silver 2019). For example, Mas and Moretti (2009) find that retail workers in teams appear to engage in monitoring and free-riding behavior that affects productivity.…”

Peer interactions and performance in a high‐skilled labour market*

“…My work is also related to, and complements, existing studies of peer effects in sports (Yamane and Hayashi, 2015;Jiang, 2020;Guryan et al, 2009;Depken and Haglund, 2011 ;Emerson and Hill, 2018). However, when compared to this literature, my study has some unique features.…”

Peers and Motivation at Work

“…A large literature provides compelling evidence that a worker's own performance depends on her peers and social interactions (Herbst and Mas 2015). Several studies show that worker effort is sensitive to the social pressure that arises when there are externalities from effort due to joint production and team compensation (Mas and Moretti 2009;Gould and Winter 2009;Bandiera, Barankay, and Rasul 2013;Babcock et al 2015;Arcidiacono, Kinsler, and Price 2016;Battisti 2017;Cornelissen, Dustmann, and Schonberg 2017;Jiang 2020;Amodio and Martinez-Carrasco 2018;Silver 2019). For example, Mas and Moretti (2009) find that retail workers in teams appear to engage in monitoring and free-riding behavior that affects productivity.…”