Leveling the Playing Field: Subjective Performance and the Optimality of Impartial Evaluation∗

We investigate the incentive and project screening effects of anonymity in the peerreview process. If the process is “blind”, then the applicant’s (payoff relevant) type is hidden from the reviewer. If the process is nonblind or “informed”, then the reviewer observes the applicant’s type directly. In either case, the evaluator receives a noisy signal on the quality of the agent’s project and decides whether to accept or reject it. We find that if the signal is not verifiable, then informed evaluation results in an excessively steep equilibrium acceptance policy: the standard applied to low-ability applicants is too stringent and the standard applied to high ability applicants is too lenient. Blind review in which all applicants face the same standard often provides better incentives, but it discards valuable information for screening projects. We discover that blind review is more likely to be preferred by the evaluator when (1) the applicant pool is skewed toward high ability types; (2) the stakes from acceptance are relatively high for applicants; (3) charging an application fee is feasible; or (4) there is little competition among reviewers. We also discover that under blind review, the evaluator may benefit from a more diverse applicant pool. JEL: C73, D02, D81 General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise. —Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Lochner v. New York, Apr. 1905. ∗We thank seminar participants at HEC-Montreal for comments.