Contests for Experimentation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Halac, Marina; Kartik, Navin; Liu, Qingmin
• 署名单位: Columbia University; University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/693040
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1523-1569
• 关键词: Strategic experimentation; development competition; incentives; disclosure; CONTRACTS; feedback; hazard; speed

摘要

We study contests for innovation with learning about the innovation's feasibility and opponents' outcomes. We characterize contests that maximize innovation when the designer chooses a prize-sharing scheme and a disclosure policy. A public winner-takes-all contest dominates public contestswhere any success is immediately disclosedwith any other prize-sharing scheme as well as winner-takes-all contests with any other disclosure policy. Yet, jointly modifying prize sharing and disclosure can increase innovation. In a broad class of mechanisms, it is optimal to share the prize with disclosure following a certain number of successes; under simple conditions, a hidden equal-sharing contest is optimal.