School of Economics 

 Invites you to a

Microeconomics Theory seminar presented by

Mikhail Drugov

(New Economic School)

Selecting the Best When Selection is Hard

Co-authors:

Margaret Meyer (University of Oxford)

Marc Möller (University of Bern)

Thursday 22 June

4.00pm – 5.00pm 

Level 6 Seminar Room (650)

A02 Social Sciences Building

Camperdown Campus
The University of Sydney NSW 2006 

Via Zoom: 896 4388 0605

Passcode: 452121 

Abstract: In dynamic promotion contests, where performance measurement is noisy and ordinal, selection can be improved by biasing later stages in favor of early leaders. Even in the worst-case scenario, where noise swamps ability differences in determining relative performance, optimal bias is i) strictly positive; ii) locally insensitive to changes in the heterogeneity-to-noise ratio. A close relationship with expected optimal bias under cardinal information helps explain this surprising result. Properties i) and ii) imply that the simple rule of setting bias as if in the worst-case scenario achieves most of the potential gains in selective efficiency from biasing dynamic rank-order contests. 

For further information contact: Microeconomics Theory seminar series coordinators Dr Mengke Wang (mengke.wang@sydney.edu.au) & Dr Mert Kimya (mert.kimya@sydney.edu.au)

For all upcoming seminars in School of Economics see Our events and Calendar