You’re ignoring the information effects. Your point is valid if every applicant applies only for the best possible grant, but if there are 20 applicants and 20 funders, the odds of that are low—and the more applications per researcher, the higher those odds get.
You’re ignoring the information effects. Your point is valid if every applicant applies only for the best possible grant, but if there are 20 applicants and 20 funders, the odds of that are low—and the more applications per researcher, the higher those odds get.