# Contest Architecture with Public Disclosures

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes how contest designers can optimally disclose participant efforts over time, revealing that simple, well-known contest structures often emerge as optimal solutions across various objectives.

## Contribution

It characterizes optimal disclosure policies in sequential contests and demonstrates that classic contest formats are often optimal under diverse objectives.

## Key findings

- Optimal disclosure policies often lead to classic contest structures.
- Different objectives involve trade-offs but often favor simple contest formats.
- The study provides a unified framework for understanding disclosure in contests.

## Abstract

I study optimal disclosure policies in sequential contests. A contest designer chooses at which periods to publicly disclose the efforts of previous contestants. I provide results for a wide range of possible objectives for the contest designer. While different objectives involve different trade-offs, I show that under many circumstances the optimal contest is one of the three basic contest structures widely studied in the literature: simultaneous, first-mover, or sequential contest.