Abstract

We study the optimal way to select projects or agents in environments where information
arrives in well dened rounds. Examples include academic environments where review
periods are set by policy, aptitude tests such as those given by software developers to
programmers applying for jobs, venture capital protocols where the rounds of funding may
be stopped before the project is complete, and FDA testing, where drugs can be dropped
at well dened junctures. Sequential rounds of elimination reduce the cost of selection, but
also reduce the average quality of surviving projects. We characterize the nature of the
optimal screening process with and without "memory."

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