IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/the/publsh/4259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal contests with incomplete information and convex effort costs

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Mengxi

    (Department of Economics, University of Bonn)

Abstract

I investigate the design of effort-maximizing mechanisms when agents have both private information and convex effort costs, and the designer has a fixed prize budget. I first demonstrate that it is always optimal for the designer to utilize a contest with as many participants as possible. Further, I identify a necessary and sufficient condition for the winner-takes-all prize structure to be optimal. When this condition fails, the designer may prefer to award multiple prizes of descending sizes. I also provide a characterization of the optimal prize allocation rule for this case. Finally, I illustrate how the optimal prize distribution evolves as the contest size grows.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Mengxi, 2024. "Optimal contests with incomplete information and convex effort costs," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 19(1), January.
    • Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:4259
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20240095/38404/1162
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthews, Steven A., 1983. "Selling to risk averse buyers with unobservable tastes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 370-400, August.
    2. Baisa, Brian, 2017. "Auction design without quasilinear preferences," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    3. Dawei Fang & Thomas Noe & Philipp Strack, 2020. "Turning Up the Heat: The Discouraging Effect of Competition in Contests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1940-1975.
    4. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    5. Maskin, Eric S & Riley, John G, 1984. "Optimal Auctions with Risk Averse Buyers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1473-1518, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Giebe & Oliver Gürtler, 2024. "Player Strength and Effort in Contests," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 285, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    2. Deng, Shanglyu & Fu, Qiang & Wu, Zenan & Zhu, Yuxuan, 0. "Contests with sequential entry and incomplete information," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mengxi Zhang, 2023. "Optimal Contests with Incomplete Information and Convex Effort Costs," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_156v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    2. Baisa, Brian, 2016. "Overbidding and inefficiencies in multi-unit Vickrey auctions for normal goods," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 23-35.
    3. Vasserman, Shoshana & Watt, Mitchell, 2021. "Risk aversion and auction design: Theoretical and empirical evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Goeree, Jacob K. & Kushnir, Alexey, 2016. "Reduced form implementation for environments with value interdependencies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 250-256.
    5. Natalia Kovrijnykh & Igor Livshits, 2017. "Screening As A Unified Theory Of Delinquency, Renegotiation, And Bankruptcy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 499-527, May.
    6. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Zou, Liang, 2011. "Premium auctions and risk preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2420-2439.
    7. Maréchal, François & Morand, Pierre-Henri, 2011. "First-price sealed-bid auctions when bidders exhibit different attitudes toward risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 108-111.
    8. Matthews, Steven, 1987. "Comparing Auctions for Risk Averse Buyers: A Buyer's Point of View," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 633-646, May.
    9. Giuseppe Lopomo, 2004. "Optimality and Robustness of the English Auction," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000391, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Arne Lauber & Christoph March & Marco Sahm, 2022. "Optimal and Fair Prizing in Sequential Round-Robin Tournaments: Experimental Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9651, CESifo.
    11. Menicucci, Domenico, 2003. "Selling to the highest valuation bidder under risk aversion and asymmetry," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 247-253, May.
    12. Li, Yunan, 2019. "Efficient mechanisms with information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 279-328.
    13. Anne Épaulard & Jean-Pierre Laffargue & Pierre Malgrange, 2008. "Présentation générale," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(2), pages 1-13.
    14. Miller, Nolan & Piankov, Nikita & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2001. "When to Haggle," Working Paper Series rwp01-025, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    15. Wayne-Roy Gayle, 2005. "Numerical Analysis of Asymmetric First Price Auctions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 472, Society for Computational Economics.
    16. J.M.J. Delnoij & K.J.M. De Jaegher, 2016. "Competing first-price and second-price auctions," Working Papers 16-07, Utrecht School of Economics.
    17. Piotr Dworczak & Scott Duke Kominers & Mohammad Akbarpour, 2021. "Redistribution Through Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1665-1698, July.
    18. Cox, James C. & Sadiraj, Vjollca, 2006. "Small- and large-stakes risk aversion: Implications of concavity calibration for decision theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 45-60, July.
    19. Wayne-Roy Gayle & Jean Richard, 2008. "Numerical Solutions of Asymmetric, First-Price, Independent Private Values Auctions," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 245-278, October.
    20. Bartling, Björn & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "An externality-robust auction: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 186-204.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal contest; incomplete information; mechanism design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:the:publsh:4259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin J. Osborne (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econtheory.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.