Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Soenmez, Tayfun
• 署名单位: Boston College
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/669915
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 186-219
• 关键词: School choice; CONTRACTS; admissions; STABILITY; salaries; auction

摘要

Motivated by the low retention rates of US Military Academy and Reserve Officer Training Corps graduates, the Army recently introduced incentives programs in which cadets could bid 3 years of additional service obligation to obtain higher priority for their desired branches. The full potential of this incentives program is not utilized because of the ROTC's deficient matching mechanism. I propose a design that eliminates these shortcomings and mitigates several policy problems the Army has identified. In contrast to the ROTC mechanism, my design utilizes market principles more extensively, and it is a hybrid between a market mechanism and a priority-based allocation mechanism.