IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v61y2015icp253-270.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare-maximizing assignment of agents to hierarchical positions

Author

Listed:
  • Hafalir, Isa
  • Miralles, Antonio

Abstract

We allocate agents to three kinds of hierarchical positions: top, medium, and low. No monetary transfers are allowed. We solve for the incentive-compatible (IC) mechanisms that maximize a family of weighted social welfares that includes utilitarian and Rawlsian welfares. When the market is tough (all agents bear positive risk of obtaining a low position in any IC and feasible mechanism), then the pseudomarket mechanism with equal budgets (PM) and the Boston mechanism without priorities (BM) yield identical assignments which are always optimal. Otherwise, when the market is mild, PM and BM differ and each one implements the optimal rule under different assumptions on the curvature of virtual valuations. We also establish that both BM and PM mechanisms guarantee IC Pareto-optimal assignments for a domain of preference distributions satisfying weak assumptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Hafalir, Isa & Miralles, Antonio, 2015. "Welfare-maximizing assignment of agents to hierarchical positions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 253-270.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:61:y:2015:i:c:p:253-270
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2015.09.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406815001123
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2015.09.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hart, Sergiu & Nisan, Noam, 2017. "Approximate revenue maximization with multiple items," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 313-347.
    2. Börgers, Tilman & Postl, Peter, 2009. "Efficient compromising," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2057-2076, September.
    3. Johnson, T.R., 2013. "Matching through position auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1700-1713.
    4. Yeon-Koo Che & Wouter Dessein & Navin Kartik, 2013. "Pandering to Persuade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 47-79, February.
    5. Miralles, Antonio, 2012. "Cardinal Bayesian allocation mechanisms without transfers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 179-206.
    6. Gomes, Renato & Pavan, Alessandro, 2016. "Many-to-many matching and price discrimination," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    7. Guo, Yingni & Hörner, Johannes, 2015. "Dynamic Mechanisms without Money," Economics Series 310, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    8. Mark Armstrong, 2000. "Optimal Multi-Object Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 455-481.
    9. , & , J., 2015. "Maximal revenue with multiple goods: nonmonotonicity and other observations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), September.
    10. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Yeon-Koo Che & Yosuke Yasuda, 2011. "Resolving Conflicting Preferences in School Choice: The "Boston Mechanism" Reconsidered," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 399-410, February.
    11. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    12. Yeon-Koo Che & Fuhito Kojima, 2010. "Asymptotic Equivalence of Probabilistic Serial and Random Priority Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(5), pages 1625-1672, September.
    13. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2007. "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 242-259, March.
    14. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1979. "The Efficient Allocation of Individuals to Positions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 293-314, April.
    15. Terence Johnson, 2009. "Matching Through Position Auctions," Working Papers 001, University of Notre Dame, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2011.
    16. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    17. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sonmez, 1998. "Random Serial Dictatorship and the Core from Random Endowments in House Allocation Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 689-702, May.
    18. Ergin, Haluk & Sonmez, Tayfun, 2006. "Games of school choice under the Boston mechanism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 215-237, January.
    19. Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sonmez, 2008. "Leveling the Playing Field: Sincere and Sophisticated Players in the Boston Mechanism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1636-1652, September.
    20. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2001. "A New Solution to the Random Assignment Problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 295-328, October.
    21. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309-309.
    22. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ehlers, Lars & Majumdar, Dipjyoti & Mishra, Debasis & Sen, Arunava, 2020. "Continuity and incentive compatibility in cardinal mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 31-41.
    2. Lars EHLERS & Dipjyoti MAJUMDAR & Debasis MISHRA & Arunava SEN, 2016. "Continuity and Incentive Compatibility in Cardinal Voting Mechanisms," Cahiers de recherche 04-2016, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Miralles, Antonio & Pycia, Marek, 2021. "Foundations of pseudomarkets: Walrasian equilibria for discrete resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    4. Yinghua He & Antonio Miralles & Marek Pycia & Jianye Yan, 2018. "A Pseudo-Market Approach to Allocation with Priorities," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 272-314, August.
    5. Antonio Miralles & Marek Pycia, 2017. "Large vs. Continuum Assignment Economies: Efficiency and Envy-Freeness," Working Papers 950, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Bloch, Francis & Dutta, Bhaskar & Dziubiński, Marcin, 2023. "Selecting a winner with external referees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    7. Dogan, Mustafa & Uyanik, Metin, 2020. "Welfare maximizing allocation without transfers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    8. Hatfield, John William & Kojima, Fuhito & Narita, Yusuke, 2016. "Improving schools through school choice: A market design approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 186-211.
    9. EHLERS, Lars & MAJUMDAR, Dipjyoti & MISHRA, Debasis & SEN, Arunava, 2016. "Continuity and incentive compatibility," Cahiers de recherche 2016-04, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yajing Chen & Patrick Harless & Zhenhua Jiao, 2021. "The probabilistic rank random assignment rule and its axiomatic characterization," Papers 2104.09165, arXiv.org.
    2. Fuhito Kojima & M. Ünver, 2014. "The “Boston” school-choice mechanism: an axiomatic approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 515-544, April.
    3. Kesten, Onur & Unver, Utku, 2015. "A theory of school choice lotteries," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    4. He, Yinghua, 2012. "Gaming the Boston School Choice Mechanism in Beijing," TSE Working Papers 12-345, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Yinghua He & Antonio Miralles & Marek Pycia & Jianye Yan, 2018. "A Pseudo-Market Approach to Allocation with Priorities," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 272-314, August.
    6. Alexander Nesterov, "undated". "Fairness and Efficiency in a Random Assignment: Three Impossibility Results," BDPEMS Working Papers 2014006, Berlin School of Economics.
    7. Ehlers, Lars & Majumdar, Dipjyoti & Mishra, Debasis & Sen, Arunava, 2020. "Continuity and incentive compatibility in cardinal mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 31-41.
    8. Kojima, Fuhito, 2013. "Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Chen, Yan & Jiang, Ming & Kesten, Onur & Robin, Stéphane & Zhu, Min, 2018. "Matching in the large: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 295-317.
    10. Mennle, Timo & Seuken, Sven, 2021. "Partial strategyproofness: Relaxing strategyproofness for the random assignment problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    11. Miralles, Antonio & Pycia, Marek, 2021. "Foundations of pseudomarkets: Walrasian equilibria for discrete resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    12. Wu, Binzhen & Zhong, Xiaohan, 2014. "Matching mechanisms and matching quality: Evidence from a top university in China," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 196-215.
    13. Jingsheng Yu & Jun Zhang, 2020. "Efficient and fair trading algorithms in market design environments," Papers 2005.06878, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    14. Yan Chen & Peter Cramton & John A. List & Axel Ockenfels, 2021. "Market Design, Human Behavior, and Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5317-5348, September.
    15. Che, Yeon-Koo & Tercieux, Olivier, 2018. "Payoff equivalence of efficient mechanisms in large matching markets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    16. Kojima, Fuhito, 2009. "Random assignment of multiple indivisible objects," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 134-142, January.
    17. Min Zhu, 2013. "College Admissions in China : A Mechanism Design Perspective," Working Papers halshs-00860931, HAL.
    18. Eric Budish & Estelle Cantillon, 2012. "The Multi-unit Assignment Problem: Theory and Evidence from Course Allocation at Harvard," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2237-2271, August.
    19. Fragiadakis, Daniel E. & Troyan, Peter, 2019. "Designing mechanisms to focalize welfare-improving strategies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 232-252.
    20. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2015. "Size versus fairness in the assignment problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 119-127.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:61:y:2015:i:c:p:253-270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.