Optimal Allocation via Waitlists: Simplicity Through Information Design

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ashlagi, Itai; Monachou, Faidra; Nikzad, Afshin
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Yale University; University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdae013
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 40-68
• 关键词: Mechanism design; CHOICE

摘要

We study non-monetary markets where objects that arrive over time are allocated to unit-demand agents with private types, such as in the allocation of public housing or deceased-donor organs. An agent's value for an object is supermodular in her type and the object quality, and her payoff is her value minus her waiting cost. The social planner's objective is a weighted sum of allocative efficiency (i.e. the sum of values) and welfare (i.e. the sum of payoffs). We identify optimal mechanisms in the class of direct-revelation mechanisms. When the social planner can design the information disclosed to the agents about the objects, the optimal mechanism has a simple implementation: a first-come first-served waitlist with deferrals. In this implementation, the object qualities are partitioned into intervals; only the interval containing the object quality is disclosed to agents. When the planner places a higher weight on welfare, optimal disclosure policies become coarser.