We show that meritocracy, in the sense of accuracy of performance ranking, can be too much of a good thing: in contests with sufficiently homogeneous agents, it reduces output and is Pareto inefficient. In contests with sufficiently heterogeneous agents, discouragement and complacency effects further reduce the benefits of meritocracy. ...
We show that meritocracy, in the sense of accuracy of performance ranking, can be too much of a good thing: in contests with sufficiently homogeneous agents, it reduces output and is Pareto inefficient. In contests with sufficiently heterogeneous agents, discouragement and complacency effects further reduce the benefits of meritocracy. Perfect meritocracy may be optimal only for intermediate levels of heterogeneity.
