Contests for Experimentation
- Title:
- Contests for Experimentation
- Author(s):
- Halac, Marina
Kartik, Navin
Liu, Qingmin
- Date:
- 2014
- Type:
- Articles
- Department(s):
- Business
Economics
- Persistent URL:
- https://doi.org/10.7916/D8SX6BS6
- Publisher Location:
- New York
- Abstract:
- We study the design of contests for specific innovations when there is learning: contestants’ beliefs dynamically evolve about both the innovation’s feasibility and opponents’ success. Our model builds on exponential-bandit experimentation. We characterize contests that maximize the probability of innovation when the designer chooses how to allocate a prize and what information to disclose over time about contestants’ successes. A “public winner-takes-all contest” dominates public contests—those where any success is immediately disclosed—with any other prize-sharing scheme as well as winner-takes-all contests with any other disclosure policy. Yet, it is often optimal to use a “hidden equal-sharing contest”.
- Subject(s):
- Economics
- Item views
- 549
- Metadata:
-
text | xml
- Suggested Citation:
- Marina Halac, Navin Kartik, Qingmin Liu, 2014, Contests for Experimentation, Columbia University Academic Commons, https://doi.org/10.7916/D8SX6BS6.
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