The optimal allocation of prizes in contests

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moldovanu, B; Sela, A
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.3.542
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 542-558
• 关键词: tournaments; auctions; incentives; MODEL; WAR

摘要

We study a contest with multiple, nonidentical prices. Participants are privately informed about a parameter (ability) affecting their costs of effort. The contestant with the highest effort wins the first prize, the contestant with the second-highest effort wins the second prize, and so on until all the prizes are allocated. The contest's designer maximizes expected effort. Where cost functions are linens or concave in effort it is optimal to allocate the entire prize sum to a single first prize. When cost functions are convex, several positive prizes may be optimal.