Efficient lottery design

Onur Kesten, Morimitsu Kurino, Alexander S. Nesterov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

There has been a surge of interest in stochastic assignment mechanisms that have proven to be theoretically compelling thanks to their prominent welfare properties. Contrary to stochastic mechanisms, however, lottery mechanisms are commonly used in real life for indivisible goods allocation. To help facilitate the design of practical lottery mechanisms, we provide new tools for obtaining stochastic improvements in lotteries. As applications, we propose lottery mechanisms that improve upon the widely used random serial dictatorship mechanism and a lottery representation of its competitor, the probabilistic serial mechanism. The tools we provide here can be useful in developing welfare-enhanced new lottery mechanisms for practical applications such as school choice.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-57
Number of pages27
JournalSocial Choice and Welfare
Volume48
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017 Jan 1
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Economics and Econometrics

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