Sharing the proceeds from a hierarchical venture

We consider the problem of distributing the proceeds generated from a joint venture in which the participating agents are hierarchically organized. We characterize a family of allocation rules ranging from the so-called zero-transfer rule (which awards agents in the hierarchy their individually generated revenues) and the full-transfer rule (which awards all the proceeds to the agent at the top of the hierarchy). The intermediate rule of the family imposes a sequence of transfers along the hierarchy consistent with the so-called MIT strategy, recently singled out as an optimal social mobilization mechanism. Our benchmark model refers to the case of linear hierarchies, but we also extend the analysis to the case in which hierarchies convey a general tree structure.