Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Abstract In this paper, we first characterize the class of contest success functions (CSFs) that yield contests with equilibria in dominant strategies. Then we study the optimal contest as a decision problem under uncertainty. We consider the classical criteria of Wald, Laplace, Hurwicz and Savage. We find that the CSF that maximizes aggregate effort under these criteria has the form of an additively separable cutoff CSF.