Many sales, sports, and research contests are put in place to maximize contestants’ performance. We investigate and provide a complete characterization of the prize structures that achieve this objective in settings with many contestants. The contestants may be ex-ante asymmetric in their...

Many facts are learned through the intermediation of individuals with special access to information, such as law enforcement officers, employees with a security clearance, or experts with specific knowledge. This paper considers whether societies can learn about such facts when information is...