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Free keywords:
Optimal contest design; Expected effort of the winner; Contestants’ exclusion; Leveling the playing-field
Abstract:
In noisy contests where only the winner's entry will eventually be implemented, the suitable objective is to maximize the expected quality of the entry of the winner. We compare the optimal set of rules in contests under such an objective to the one under maximization of the sum of contestants’ efforts, which is commonly assumed in the literature, and find that it may be beneficial to exclude weak contestants, unlevel the playing field, and weaken the underdog.
