The Optimal Rewards in Contests

Chen Cohen, Todd Kaplan and Aner Sela
Additional contact information
Chen Cohen: BGU

No 501, Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study all-pay contests under incomplete information where the reward is a func- tion of the contestant's type and also of his effort. We analyze the optimal reward for the designer when the reward is either multiplicatively separable or additively separable in effort and type. In the multiplicatively separable environment the optimal reward is always positive while in the additively separable environment it may also be negative. In both environments, depending on the designer's utility, the optimal reward may either increase or decrease in the contestants' effort. Finally, in both environments, the designer's payoff depends only upon the expected value of the effort-dependent rewards and not the number of rewards.

Keywords: Contests; All-Pay Auctions; Optimal Design. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal rewards in contests (2008)
Working Paper: Optimal Rewards in Contests (2004)
Working Paper: The Optimal Rewards in Contests (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bgu:wpaper:0501

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