Prizes are receiving increasing attention in policy and entrepreneurial communities as means to promote innovation, but their distinguishing features remain inadequately understood. Models of patents treat winning a patent as winning a prize; other models distinguish prizes primarily as public...

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 led to the deaths of 11 workers, a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and nearly three months of massive engineering and logistics efforts to stop the spill. The series of failures before the well was...