Crowdsearch

Abstract

A common economic process is crowdsearch, wherein a group of agents is invited to search for a valuable object, such as a software vulnerability or a proof-of-work nonce. We study a binary model of crowdsearch in which agents with heterogeneous search costs decide whether or not to search. Inviting more agents directly expands the pool of potential searchers, but it also increases competition for the prize and lowers individual search incentives. This crowding-out effect may dominate, so that inviting more agents can lower the probability of finding the object. We show that inviting an unlimited crowd need not guarantee success. We also provide sufficient conditions, based on the lower-tail behavior of the cost distribution, under which the probability of success is eventually increasing or eventually decreasing in the number of agents.

arXiv commentarXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2304.00077