Abstract
Many grant applications have a preliminary stage where only a select group are invited to submit a full application. Similarly, procurement contracts by governments are often awarded through a two-stage procedure. We model and analyze such environments where the designer cares about the style of the application as well as its quality. The designer has the option of choosing an initial stage, where contestants can enter and learn about their desirability while the designer learns about their style. We determine closed form solutions for equilibrium outcomes and designer payoffs and use this to analyze design questions regarding whether or not a second stage is desirable, different rules for deciding who will advance, as with whether or not to communicate the number of contestants that qualify for the second stage.
Highlights
There are many examples of contests run in two stages
The designer can choose between two qualifying rules: (1) all those that are discovered to have a desired style advance, or (2) of the contestants eligible to move to the second stage, two randomly advance
For consistency when comparing to when there is a unique equilibrium, we focus on the symmetric equilibrium.) each contestant bids according to the distribution function: Fi (x) =
Summary
There are many examples of contests run in two stages. Often grant applications have a preliminary stage where only some of the applications advance to the second stage. We assume for simplicity that the first stage is limited in scope such that a contestant can either put in the effort required for the designer to determine his or her type or not. This matches many real world contests where the first stage is meant to weed out those with an inappropriate style. The contribution of our paper is adding the possibility of a two-stage design to a contest where the designer cares about style as well as quality and can reveal information about the number of contestants.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
