An Information Theory of Efficient Differential Treatment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Temnyalov, Emil
• 署名单位: University of Technology Sydney
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200400
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 323-358
• 关键词: AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION; school choice; college admissions; statistical discrimination; dynamic-model; diversity; GENDER; performance; policies; IMPACT

摘要

When are differential treatment policies-such as preferential treat-ment, affirmative action, and gender equity policies-justified by efficiency concerns? I propose a nonparametric assignment model where a policymaker assigns agents to different treatments or posi-tions to maximize total surplus, based on the agents' characteristics and noisy information about their types. I provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the agents' signal structures, which charac-terize whether surplus maximization requires differential treatment or not, and study how the bias and informativeness of signal struc-tures determine the efficiency implications of differential treatment. I examine implications of this model for inequality, decentralization, and empirical work. (JEL D63, D82, D83, I23, I24, J71)