Dueling Contests and Platform's Coordinating Role

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Stouras, Konstantinos I.; Erat, Sanjiv; Lichtendahl Jr, Kenneth C.
• 署名单位: University College Dublin; University of California System; University of California San Diego; Alphabet Inc.; Google Incorporated
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.03973
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: crowdsourcing; Nudges; incentives; multiple contests; Endogenous participation

摘要

Crowdsourcing platforms typically take a passive approach, and they let the competing firms freely design their own contests and allow every solver to self-select and join any of the concurrently running contests. In a model of competing noise-driven contests, we show that the duopoly prize allocation has fewer (but larger) prizes compared with a monopolist contest designer. We also find that contests with firm-chosen budgets and solvers' endogenous participation create coordination inefficiencies. Thus, platform policies that constrain the competing firms from freely choosing their budgets and offer solvers non-enforceable recommendations toward specific noise-driven contests strictly enhance total welfare. Extending our framework to include arbitrarily correlated ability -driven contests, we highlight the critical role of inter-contest dependence on the efficacy of a platform's interventions. Specifically, platform nudges to improve solver-contest (mis-)matches are welfare enhancing only when the contests are sufficiently related, and allowing solvers to self-sort is appropriate otherwise.