In certain judgmental situations where a “correct” decision is presumed to exist, optimal decision making requires evaluation of the decision-maker's capabilities and the selection of the appropriate aggregation rule. The major and so far unresolved difficulty is the former necessity. This...

This paper evaluates differential prize taxation and structural discrimination as a means of increasing efforts in the most widely studied contests. We establish that a designer who maximizes efforts subject to a balanced-budget constraint prefers dual discrimination, namely, change of the...

Direct confrontation between majority rule (MR) and the most in-depth studied scoring rules - the Borda rule (BR) and the plurality rule (PR) - on the basis of their fundamental weaknesses (violating one of the two principles: majoritarianism and suitable recognition of preference intensity) has...

Many contests, such as innovation races or litigation, often involve reimbursement of expenses. This study examines optimal reimbursement schemes in two-player Tullock contests, analyzing four reimbursement structures: external and internal mechanisms targeting the contest winner or loser. We...

This paper focuses on indivisible multiple-cost-single-benefit projects that must be approved by the government. A simple mechanism is proposed that ensures an efficient and fair implementation of such projects. The proposed mechanism is appropriate for a unilateral information structure: the...

The means of contest design may include differential taxation of the prize. This paper establishes that, given a revenue-maximizing contest designer who faces a balanced-budget constraint, the optimal taxation scheme corresponding to an all-pay auction is appealing in two senses. First, it...

The characteristics of endogenously determined sharing rules and the group-size paradox are studied in a model of group contest with the following features: (i) The prize has mixed private-public good characteristics. (ii) Groups can differ in marginal cost of effort and their membership size....

The means of contest design may include differential taxation of the prize. This paper establishes that, given a revenue-maximizing contest designer who faces a balanced-budget constraint, the optimal taxation scheme corresponding to an all-pay auction is appealing in two senses. First, it...