In a contest in which solvers with heterogeneous expertise exert effort to develop solutions, a recent paper (Terwiesch, C., Y. Xu. 2008. Innovation contests, open innovation and multiagent problem solving. Management Science. 54(9) 1529--1543) argues that as more solvers enter the contest,...

In an innovation contest, an organizer seeks solutions to an innovation-related problem from a group of independent agents. Agents, who can be heterogeneous in their ability levels, exert efforts to improve their solutions, and their solution qualities are uncertain due to the innovation and...