存在荣誉效用的等级竞赛机制分析

针对存在荣誉效用的等级竞赛，研究在等级数已定的条件下，以总努力最大化为目标的竞赛设计者如何设置竞赛人数和各等级人数的问题。通过分析荣誉效用由于相邻等级容量调整所引起的变化对总努力的影响，得到结论：无论能力分布如何，将最高等级容量设置得很小，对竞赛设计者而言，是更合理的选择；当竞赛者的能力分布为凹函数时，将中低等级的容量设置得相对较大更合理；当能力分布为凸函数时，将中高等级的容量设置得相对较小更合理。

Analysis on Status Contests Mechanism with Honor Utility

On status contests mechanism with honor utility,this paper examines how designers should decide the number of contestants and the size of every status category with objective of maximizing the total efforts and the number of status categories given.Through analysis of the honor utility's effect on the total efforts with the change of sizes of contiguous status,we find out that: I) whatever the distribution of contestants' ability is,a small size of the top status category is reasonable; ii) if the distribution of contestants' ability is concave,the size of the bottom status category should exceed half of the number of contestants; iii) if the distribution is convex,the size of the top status category should not exceed half of the number of contestants.