We show that too much meritocracy, modeled as accuracy of performance ranking incontests, can be a bad thing: in contests with homogeneous agents, it reduces output and isPareto inefficient. In contests with sufficiently heterogeneous agents, discouragement andcomplacency effects further reduce...

We study career choice when competition for promotion is a contest. A more meritocratic profession always succeeds in attracting the highest ability types, whereas a profession with superior promotion benefits attracts high types only if the hazard rate of the noise in performance evaluation is...