Working paper

Prizes versus Contracts as Incentives for Innovation

Yeon-Koo Che, Elisabetta Iossa, and Patrick Rey

Abstract

Procuring an innovation involves motivating a research effort to generate a new idea and then implementing that idea efficiently. If research efforts are unveriable and implementation costs are private information, a trade-off arises between the two objectives. The optimal mechanism resolves the trade-off via two instruments: a cash prize and a follow-on contract. It primarily uses the latter, by favoring the innovator at the implementation stage when the value of the innovation is above a certain threshold and handicapping the innovator when the value of the innovation is below that threshold. A cash prize is employed as a supplementary incentive only when the value of innovation is sufficiently high. These features are consistent with current practices in the procurement of innovation and the management of unsolicited proposals.

Keywords

Contract rights; Inducement Prizes; Innovation; Procurement and R&D;

JEL codes

  • D44: Auctions
  • D82: Asymmetric and Private Information • Mechanism Design
  • H57: Procurement
  • O31: Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
  • O38: Government Policy
  • O39: Other

Reference

Yeon-Koo Che, Elisabetta Iossa, and Patrick Rey, Prizes versus Contracts as Incentives for Innovation, TSE Working Paper, n. 16-695, September 2016, revised November 2020.

See also

Published in

TSE Working Paper, n. 16-695, September 2016, revised November 2020