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.

Welfare-Maximizing Assignment of Agents to Hierarchical Positions

Miralles Asensio A
Ultimo
Formal Analysis
2015-01-01

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.
2015
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
JMathEcon.pdf

solo utenti autorizzati

Tipologia: Altro materiale allegato (es. Copertina, Indice, Materiale supplementare, Brevetti, Spin off, Start up, etc.)
Licenza: Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
Dimensione 511.6 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
511.6 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia
3138751.pdf

solo utenti autorizzati

Descrizione: Articolo principale
Tipologia: Versione Editoriale (PDF)
Licenza: Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
Dimensione 591.65 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
591.65 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11570/3138751
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 9
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 9
social impact