IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2307.07746.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Queue Design

Author

Listed:
  • Yeon-Koo Che
  • Olivier Tercieux

Abstract

We study the optimal method for rationing scarce resources through a queue system. The designer controls agents' entry into a queue and their exit, their service priority -- or queueing discipline -- as well as their information about queue priorities, while providing them with the incentive to join the queue and, importantly, to stay in the queue, when recommended by the designer. Under a mild condition, the optimal mechanism induces agents to enter up to a certain queue length and never removes any agents from the queue; serves them according to a first-come-first-served (FCFS) rule; and provides them with no information throughout the process beyond the recommendations they receive. FCFS is also necessary for optimality in a rich domain. We identify a novel role for queueing disciplines in regulating agents' beliefs and their dynamic incentives and uncover a hitherto unrecognized virtue of FCFS in this regard.

Suggested Citation

  • Yeon-Koo Che & Olivier Tercieux, 2023. "Optimal Queue Design," Papers 2307.07746, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2307.07746
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.07746
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mohammad Akbarpour & Julien Combe & Yinghua He & Victor Hiller & Robert Shimer & Olivier Tercieux, 2020. "Unpaired Kidney Exchange: Overcoming Double Coincidence of Wants without Money," Post-Print halshs-02973042, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Naonori Kakimura & Donghao Zhu, 2021. "Dynamic Bipartite Matching Market with Arrivals and Departures," Papers 2110.10824, arXiv.org.
    2. Eric Budish & Robin S. Lee & John J. Shim, 2019. "A Theory of Stock Exchange Competition and Innovation: Will the Market Fix the Market?," NBER Working Papers 25855, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Walter Castro & Julio Elias, 2022. "Injecting Adam Smith’s Ideas in the Market for Kidney Transplants," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 828, Universidad del CEMA.
    4. Mohammad Akbarpour & Yeganeh Alimohammadi & Shengwu Li & Amin Saberi, 2021. "The Value of Excess Supply in Spatial Matching Markets," Papers 2104.03219, arXiv.org.
    5. Scott Duke Kominers & Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez & M. Utku Ünver, 2020. "Paying It Backward and Forward: Expanding Access to Convalescent Plasma Therapy Through Market Design," NBER Working Papers 27143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:arx:papers:2307.07746. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.