Process Utility in High-Stakes Competition
计量经济学
2026-05-25 v1
摘要
We study how individuals trade off outcome ("what") and process ("how") utility in high-stakes strategic decisions, namely professional tennis. Using optimality conditions and the second-service rule, we derive a sufficient condition for the nonparametric lower bound on the weight of process utility to be positive. Under mild shape restrictions, the high-frequency data indicate that most players likely value process utility positively. We then develop a structural model that recovers player-specific preferences over outcomes and processes. Estimates show that players systematically sacrifice success probabilities to increase process utility, with economically meaningful consequences for match outcomes and expected earnings.
引用
@article{arxiv.2605.23539,
title = {Process Utility in High-Stakes Competition},
author = {Arnaud Dupuy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.23539},
year = {2026}
}