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The Multi-unit Assignment Problem: Theory and Evidence from Course Allocation at Harvard
- Source :
- American Economic Review, The American economic review, 102 (5
- Publication Year :
- 2012
-
Abstract
- This paper uses data consisting of students' strategically reported preferences and their underlying true preferences to study the course allocation mechanism used at Harvard Business School. We show that the mechanism is manipulable in theory, manipulated in practice, and that these manipulations cause meaningful welfare losses. However, we also find that ex-ante welfare is higher than under the strategyproof and ex-post efficient alternative, the Random Serial Dictatorship. We trace the poor ex-ante performance of RSD to a phenomenon specific to multi-unit assignment, "callousness'. We draw lessons for the design of multi-unit assignment mechanisms and for market design more broadly.<br />info:eu-repo/semantics/published
- Subjects :
- Economics and Econometrics
Inequality
media_common.quotation_subject
course allocation
dictatorship
ex-ante efficiency
ex-post efficiency
field data
market design
multi-unit assignment
random serial dictatorship
strategic behaviour
strategyproofness
Economic Justice
jel:D02
Microeconomics
Phenomenon
0502 economics and business
Economics
050207 economics
050205 econometrics
TRACE (psycholinguistics)
media_common
jel:C93
Multi-unit assignment
05 social sciences
Equity (finance)
jel:C78
16. Peace & justice
Economie
Assignment problem
Welfare
Mechanism (sociology)
Subjects
Details
- Volume :
- 102
- Issue :
- 5
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- American Economic Review
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....b3c98ac05103255ad344104938162901