How to Allocate Money?†

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dworczak, Piotr
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20230263
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: public provision; private goods; DESIGN; MARKET; redistribution; transfers; welfare; cash

摘要

I study a simple equity-efficiency problem: A designer allocates a fixed amount of money to a population of agents differing in privately observed marginal values for money. She can only screen by imposing an ordeal-that is, by allocating more money to agents who engage in a socially wasteful activity (such as queuing or filling out forms). Giving a lump-sum transfer is outperformed by an ordeal mechanism when agents with the lowest money-denominated cost of engaging in the wasteful activity have an expected value for money that exceeds the average value by more than a factor of two. (JEL D63, D82, H23, I38)