When self-interested agents compete for scarce resources, they often exaggerate the promise of their activities. As such, principals must consider both the quality of each opportunity and each agent's credibility. We show that principals are better off with less transparency because they gain...

Challenge funds (CF) induce competition between grant applicants as they develop proposals to address important social problems. We develop a game theoretic model to study how funding availability and proof of concept requirements (e.g., pilots or other forms of early stage screening) influence...

In a model of project design, evaluation, and selection, we explore how the incentives to improve the design of projects depend on the availability of funding and the process of evaluation. We show that project designers (researchers or NGOs) prefer to subject their projects to less-rigorous...

When self-interested agents compete for scarce resources, they often exaggerate the promise of their activities. As such, principals must consider both the quality of each opportunity and each agent's credibility. We show that principals are better off with less transparency because they gain...

We develop a game theoretic model of price competition in which an innovating firm can offer product demonstrations. Placing minimal restriction on the firm's ability to design demonstrations, we show that the equilibrium demonstration resolves some but not all customer valuation uncertainty and...

Self-interested agents produce information in an attempt to convince a principal to act on their behalf. Agents provide less informative evidence than the principal prefers since doing so maximizes the probability the principal acts in their favor. If the principal faces constraints that limit...

An organization must decide which proposals to fund. In evaluating the proposals, the organization may rely on those applying for funding to produce evidence about the merits of their own proposals. We consider the role of a capacity constraint preventing the organization from funding all...

We incorporate product demonstrations into a game theoretic model of firm price competition. Demonstrations may include product samples, trials, return policies, reviews, or any other means by which a firm allows consumers to learn about their value for a new product. In our model,...