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Optimal object assignment mechanisms with imperfect type veri?cation

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  • Francisco Silva
  • Juan Pereyra

Abstract

There are objects of di?erent quality to be assigned to agents. Agents can be assigned at most one object and there are not enough high quality objects for every agent. The social planner is unable to use transfers to give incentives for agents to convey their private information; instead, she is able to imperfectly verify their reports. We characterize a mechanism that maximizes welfare, where agents face di?erent lotteries over the various objects, depending on their report. We then apply our main result to the case of college admissions. We ?nd that optimal mechanisms are, in general, ex-post ine?cient and do strictly better than the standard mechanisms that are typically studied in the matching literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Silva & Juan Pereyra, 2020. "Optimal object assignment mechanisms with imperfect type veri?cation," Documentos de Trabajo 540, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:540
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    File URL: https://www.economia.uc.cl/docs/doctra/dt-540.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    5. Francisco Silva, 2019. "If We Confess Our Sins," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1389-1412, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bloch, Francis & Dutta, Bhaskar & Dziubiński, Marcin, 2023. "Selecting a winner with external referees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).

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