Allocation Mechanisms without Reduction
American Economic Review: Insights
vol. 3,
no. 4, December 2021
(pp. 455-70)
Abstract
We study a simple variant of the house allocation problem (one-sided matching). We demonstrate that agents with recursive preferences may systematically prefer one allocation mechanism to the other, even among mechanisms that are considered to be the same in standard models, in the sense that they induce the same probability distribution over successful matchings. Using this, we propose a new priority groups mechanism and provide conditions under which it is preferred to two popular mechanisms, random top cycle and random serial dictatorship.Citation
Dillenberger, David, and Uzi Segal. 2021. "Allocation Mechanisms without Reduction." American Economic Review: Insights, 3 (4): 455-70. DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20200728Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C78 Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
- D44 Auctions
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design