The Performance-Enhancing Drug Game

Abstract

Antidoping work consumes huge economic resources. Formal understanding of economic forces that drive athletes to use drugs is lacking. Consequently, work on this phenomenon may be of interest to the sports community, especially the antidoping community. This study uses simple game theory to analyze simple two-player games representing various situations of sports activity. The basic findings are the existence of Nash equilibria forcing agents to use drugs that are very often of the prisoner’s dilemma type, and antidoping work with small or no effects may hence lead to Pareto-worsened situations. This study also shows that antidoping activity should be differentiated between sports activities. Finally, somediscussions on alternative regulatory policies conclude that improved testing may not be the most efficient way to fight doping—if the fight against doping is as important as sports officials like to tell us.

Doping in elite sport - do the fans care? Public opinion on the consequences of doping scandals

“…The dependent variables were related but of a different character. The dependent variable in Table 4 measured to what (TABLE 7) SPONSORS SHOULD WITHDRAW FROM SPORTS AT FIRST-TIME DOPING EXPOSURE (TABLE 5) Haugen (2004) and Eber (2006), which both focused on how to reduce the economic incentives to doping. However, the regression analysis that used this suggestion as the dependent variable was unsuccessful in explaining the variance.…”

Why athletes say no to doping: A qualitative exploration of the reasons underpinning athletes’ decision not to dope

“…Although the 438 participants suggested that they would engage in some forms of cheating when it was 439 within the spirit of the sport (e.g., attempts to 'psych' opponents out or illegal 440 tackling) the degree of rationality in terms of decision making about PEDs was 441 interesting (Backhouse et al, 2007) -even if the athletes weren't going to get caught 442 and they were assured their performance would improve, they still reported that they 443 wouldn't take PEDs. Again, this points to the importance of attitudes and morals as a 444 key feature of the decision-making process (Haugen, 2004). 445…”

Dopage et mondialisation financière du sport : ce que nous apprend l’analyse économique !

“…La théorie des jeux permet de dépasser l'analyse de la décision économique individuelle avec la prise en compte des interactions stratégiques (Berentsen, 2002 ;Haugen, 2004). Le sportif sait qu'il est en compétition avec trois catégories d'athlètes : ceux qui ne se dopent pas ou plus (une minorité), ceux qui se dopent de façon artisanale, imprudente et peu efficace en raison de la modestie du budget disponible, ceux qui se dopent scientifiquement avec des molécules de synthèse indétec-tables et performantes (une majorité de l'élite).…”