| Abstract: |
We examine the effects of endogenous sequences on the fairness in round-robin
tournaments with four players, multiple prizes, and general contest
technologies. A tournament is called horizontally ex-ante fair if symmetric
contestants have the same expected payoffs (odds) before the tournament
starts. It is called perfectly fair if the winning probabilities in each match
depend only on the players’ characteristics but not on the position of the
match in the course of the tournament. We show that there is no sequence which
implies perfect fairness. By contrast, some endogenous sequences imply
horizontal ex-ante fairness irrespective of the prize structure. In
winner-take-all tournaments, additional endogenous sequences are horizontally
ex-ante fair. Our findings question the prevailing use of exogenous sequences
in four-player round-robin tournaments in commercial sports despite
horizontally ex-ante fair alternatives. |