IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v6y2014i3p227-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Project Selection Mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Talia Bar
  • Sidartha Gordon

Abstract

We study mechanisms for selecting up to m out of n projects. Project managers' private information on quality is elicited through transfers. Under limited liability, the optimal mechanism selects projects that maximize some function of the project's observable and reported characteristics. When all reported qualities exceed their own project-specific thresholds, the selected set only depends on observable characteristics, not reported qualities. Each threshold is related to (i) the outside option level at which the cost and benefit of eliciting information on the project cancel out and (ii) the optimal value of selecting one among infinitely many ex ante identical projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Talia Bar & Sidartha Gordon, 2014. "Optimal Project Selection Mechanisms," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 227-255, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:6:y:2014:i:3:p:227-55
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.6.3.227
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.6.3.227
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/0603/2011-0086_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/ds/0603/2011-0086_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shin, Dongsoo, 2008. "Information acquisition and optimal project management," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 1032-1043, July.
    2. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    3. Krishna, Vijay, 2009. "Auction Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 2, number 9780123745071.
    4. Manelli, Alejandro M & Vincent, Daniel R, 1995. "Optimal Procurement Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(3), pages 591-620, May.
    5. John Moore, 1985. "Optimal Labour Contracts when Workers have a Variety of Privately Observed Reservation Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 37-67.
    6. Guochang Zhang, 1997. "Moral Hazard in Corporate Investment and the Disciplinary Role of Voluntary Capital Rationing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(6), pages 737-750, June.
    7. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    8. David Sappington, 1982. "Optimal Regulation of Research and Development under Imperfect Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 354-368, Autumn.
    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. Raphael Boleslavsky & Christopher Cotton, 2018. "Limited capacity in project selection: competition through evidence production," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(2), pages 385-421, March.
    2. Raphael Boleslavsky & Bruce Carlin & Christopher Cotton, 2021. "A Model of Challenge Funds: How Funding Availability and Selection Rigor Affect Project Quality," Working Paper 1470, Economics Department, Queen's University.

    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. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t49coi7 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t49coi7 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t49coi7 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t49coi7 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Onur A. Koska & Ilke Onur & Frank Stähler, 2018. "The scope of auctions in the presence of downstream interactions and information externalities," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 107-136, October.
    6. Johannes Hörner & Larry Samuelson, 2011. "Managing Strategic Buyers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 379-425.
    7. Russell Cooper, 1984. "On Allocative Distortions in Problems of Self-Selection," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 568-577, Winter.
    8. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2003. "On second-price auctions and imperfect competition," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 901-909, November.
    9. Kim, Dong-Hyuk, 2013. "Optimal choice of a reserve price under uncertainty," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 587-602.
    10. Paweł Kuśmierczyk, 2015. "Efficiency of the Reversed First-Price Sealed Bid Auctions with a Dynamic Run-Off. Results of Experiments," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 7(3), pages 151-167, September.
    11. Rene Kirkegaard, 2005. "A Simple Approach to Analyzing Asymmetric First Price Auctions," Working Papers 0504, Brock University, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2005.
    12. Philippe Jehiel & Laurent Lamy, 2020. "On the Benefits of Set-Asides," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 1655-1696.
    13. Malueg, David A. & Orzach, Ram, 2009. "Revenue comparison in common-value auctions: Two examples," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 177-180, November.
    14. Peter Cramton & Yoav Shoham & Richard Steinberg, 2007. "An Overview of Combinatorial Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 07oca, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2007.
    15. Veronika Grimm, 2004. "On Procurement Auctions Of Complementary Goods," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-02, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    16. Jingfeng Lu, 2009. "Auction design with opportunity cost," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(1), pages 73-103, January.
    17. Matros, Alexander & Zapechelnyuk, Andriy, 2011. "Optimal mechanisms for an auction mediator," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 426-431, July.
    18. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    19. Alexander Matros, 2006. "Optimal Mechanisms for an Auction Mediator," Working Paper 202, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2006.
    20. Robert W. Day & Peter Cramton, 2012. "Quadratic Core-Selecting Payment Rules for Combinatorial Auctions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 588-603, June.
    21. Jehiel, Philippe & Lamy, Laurent, 2014. "On discrimination in procurement auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9790, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Burguet, Roberto & Ganuza, Juan-José & Hauk, Esther, 2012. "Limited liability and mechanism design in procurement," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 15-25.
    23. Florian Englmaier & Arno Schmöller, 2008. "Reserve Price Formation in Online Auctions," CESifo Working Paper Series 2374, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    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:aea:aejmic:v:6:y:2014:i:3:p:227-55. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.