IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1708.01308.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Mean Field Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Marcel Nutz
  • Yuchong Zhang

Abstract

We introduce a mean field game with rank-based reward: competing agents optimize their effort to achieve a goal, are ranked according to their completion time, and paid a reward based on their relative rank. First, we propose a tractable Poissonian model in which we can describe the optimal effort for a given reward scheme. Second, we study the principal--agent problem of designing an optimal reward scheme. A surprising, explicit design is found to minimize the time until a given fraction of the population has reached the goal.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcel Nutz & Yuchong Zhang, 2017. "A Mean Field Competition," Papers 1708.01308, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1708.01308
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.01308
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hyeng Keun Koo & Gyoocheol Shim & Jaeyoung Sung, 2008. "Optimal Multi‐Agent Performance Measures For Team Contracts," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 649-667, October.
    2. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    3. Rene Carmona & Francois Delarue & Daniel Lacker, 2016. "Mean field games of timing and models for bank runs," Papers 1606.03709, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2017.
    4. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1982. "A Dynamic Game of R and D: Patent Protection and Competitive Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 671-688, May.
    5. Romuald Elie & Dylan Possamai, 2016. "Contracting theory with competitive interacting agents," Papers 1605.08099, arXiv.org.
    6. Erhan Bayraktar & Yuchong Zhang, 2016. "A rank based mean field game in the strong formulation," Papers 1603.06312, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2016.
    7. Cao, Dan, 2014. "Racing under uncertainty: Boundary value problem approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 508-527.
    8. Christopher Harris & John Vickers, 1987. "Racing with Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(1), pages 1-21.
    9. Sun, Yeneng & Zhang, Yongchao, 2009. "Individual risk and Lebesgue extension without aggregate uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 432-443, January.
    10. Sergey Nadtochiy & Mykhaylo Shkolnikov, 2017. "Particle systems with singular interaction through hitting times: application in systemic risk modeling," Papers 1705.00691, arXiv.org.
    11. Konrad Podczeck, 2010. "On existence of rich Fubini extensions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 45(1), pages 1-22, October.
    12. Sun, Yeneng, 2006. "The exact law of large numbers via Fubini extension and characterization of insurable risks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 31-69, January.
    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. Marcel Nutz & Jaime San Martin & Xiaowei Tan, 2018. "Convergence to the Mean Field Game Limit: A Case Study," Papers 1806.00817, arXiv.org, revised May 2019.

    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. Marcel Nutz & Yuchong Zhang, 2019. "A Mean Field Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 1245-1263, November.
    2. , & , P. & , & ,, 2015. "Strategic uncertainty and the ex-post Nash property in large games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), January.
    3. Mendolicchio, Concetta & Paolini, Dimitri & Pietra, Tito, 2012. "Investments in education and welfare in a two-sector, random matching economy," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 367-385.
    4. Cao, Dan, 2020. "Recursive equilibrium in Krusell and Smith (1998)," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    5. Brendan Daley & Ruoyu Wang, 2018. "When to Release Feedback in a Dynamic Tournament," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 11-26, March.
    6. Balbus, Lukasz & Dziewulski, Pawel & Reffett, Kevin & Wozny, Lukasz, 2022. "Markov distributional equilibrium dynamics in games with complementarities and no aggregate risk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(2), May.
    7. Sun, Xiang & Sun, Yeneng & Yu, Haomiao, 2020. "The individualistic foundation of equilibrium distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Khan, M. Ali & Rath, Kali P. & Sun, Yeneng & Yu, Haomiao, 2013. "Large games with a bio-social typology," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 1122-1149.
    9. Chen, Enxian & Qiao, Lei & Sun, Xiang & Sun, Yeneng, 2022. "Robust perfect equilibrium in large games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    10. Lei Qiao & Yeneng Sun & Zhixiang Zhang, 2016. "Conditional exact law of large numbers and asymmetric information economies with aggregate uncertainty," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 62(1), pages 43-64, June.
    11. Morgan, John & Tumlinson, Justin & Várdy, Felix, 2022. "The limits of meritocracy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    12. Martin Hellwig, 2011. "Incomplete-Information Models of Large Economies with Anonymity: Existence and Uniqueness of Common Priors," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_08, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    13. Peter J. Hammond & Lei Qiao & Yeneng Sun, 2021. "Monte Carlo sampling processes and incentive compatible allocations in large economies," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(3), pages 1161-1187, April.
    14. Marcel Nutz, 2016. "A Mean Field Game of Optimal Stopping," Papers 1605.09112, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2017.
    15. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    16. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    17. Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Szech, Nora, 2023. "Designing contests between heterogeneous contestants: An experimental study of tie-breaks and bid-caps in all-pay auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Alexander Aurell & René Carmona & Gökçe Dayanıklı & Mathieu Laurière, 2022. "Finite State Graphon Games with Applications to Epidemics," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 49-81, March.
    19. Fershtman, Chaim & Markovich, Sarit, 2010. "Patents, imitation and licensing in an asymmetric dynamic R&D race," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 113-126, March.
    20. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:1708.01308. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.