Extensive research has confirmed that there is significant anchoring bias in purchase mortgage appraisals, with appraisers setting the value at or above the contract price the vast majority of the time. However, understanding appraisal bias in refinance mortgages has been significantly more...

Two potentially asymmetric players compete for a prize of common value, which is initially unknown, by exerting efforts. A designer has two instruments for contest design. First, she decides whether and how to disclose an informative signal of the prize value to players. Second, she sets the...