Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 279: Education investment effects of affirmative action policy. Contest game argument

In this paper we study the effects of the implementation of affirmative action policy on the competitive and learning effort. The existing literature addressing the problem of effort provision under equal treatment and affirmative action policy typically studies one type of effort only, without differentiating between the (competitive) effort that players exert exclusively in a competitive stage of a game (in a sport play, at a university exam, etc) and the (learning) effort that they exert before that stage to improve their competitive skills and chances to win. We show that there are instances in which affirmative action policy objective may be missed. Namely, we demonstrate also in some special circumstances as a result of education investment incentives the ex ante weaker player - agent 2 may become stronger than the ex ante stronger player - agent 1.