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Contests to Incentivize a Target Group

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  • Edith Elkind
  • Abheek Ghosh
  • Paul Goldberg

Abstract

We study how to incentivize agents in a target group to produce a higher output in the context of incomplete information, by means of rank-order allocation contests. We describe a symmetric Bayes--Nash equilibrium for contests that have two types of rank-based prizes: prizes that are accessible only to the agents in the target group; prizes that are accessible to everyone. We also specialize this equilibrium characterization to two important sub-cases: (i) contests that do not discriminate while awarding the prizes, i.e., only have prizes that are accessible to everyone; (ii) contests that have prize quotas for the groups, and each group can compete only for prizes in their share. For these models, we also study the properties of the contest that maximizes the expected total output by the agents in the target group.

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  • Edith Elkind & Abheek Ghosh & Paul Goldberg, 2022. "Contests to Incentivize a Target Group," Papers 2204.14051, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2204.14051
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela, 2008. "The Optimal Allocation of Prizes in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 615-631, Springer.
    2. Olszewski, Wojciech & Siegel, Ron, 2020. "Performance-maximizing large contests," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(1), January.
    3. Barut, Yasar & Kovenock, Dan, 1998. "The symmetric multiple prize all-pay auction with complete information," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 627-644, November.
    4. Amann, Erwin & Leininger, Wolfgang, 1996. "Asymmetric All-Pay Auctions with Incomplete Information: The Two-Player Case," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, May.
    5. Deng, Shanglyu & Fu, Qiang & Wu, Zenan, 2021. "Optimally biased Tullock contests," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 10-21.
    6. Kirkegaard, René, 2012. "Favoritism in asymmetric contests: Head starts and handicaps," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 226-248.
    7. Fu, Qiang & Wu, Zenan, 2020. "On the optimal design of biased contests," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    8. Bodoh-Creed, Aaron L. & Hickman, Brent R., 2018. "College assignment as a large contest," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 88-126.
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