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Harnessing beliefs to optimally disclose contestants’ types

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  • Marco Serena

    (Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance)

Abstract

A contestant’s effort depends on her knowledge of her rival’s type. This knowledge is often limited in real-life contests. We propose a model where the principal of a contest has commitment power to verifiably disclose contestants’ types. We investigate the optimal disclosure policy to stimulate contestants’ efforts. Full disclosure stimulates more (less) effort than full concealment if high-types are more (less) likely than low-types. However, regardless of the likelihood of types, the optimal policy is that of contingent disclosure; it is optimal to commit to disclosing if both contestants are high types and concealing otherwise.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Serena, 2022. "Harnessing beliefs to optimally disclose contestants’ types," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 763-792, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:74:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-021-01378-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-021-01378-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Shanglyu Deng & Hanming Fang & Qiang Fu & Zenan Wu, 2023. "Information Favoritism and Scoring Bias in Contests," PIER Working Paper Archive 23-002, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    2. Lu, Jingfeng & Ma, Hongkun & Wang, Zhewei, 2023. "Information sharing decisions in all-pay auctions with correlated types," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Xin Feng, 2023. "Information disclosure in all-pay contests with costly entry," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(2), pages 401-421, June.
    4. Andriy Zapechelnyuk, 2023. "On the equivalence of information design by uninformed and informed principals," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1051-1067, November.
    5. Feng, Xin, 2024. "Ambiguous persuasion in contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 182-201.
    6. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    7. Chen, Bo & Serena, Marco, 2023. "Disclosure Policies in All-Pay Auctions with Bid Caps," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 141-160.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contests; Strategic complements; Strategic substitutes; Information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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