Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Discussion Papers on Economics,
University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

No 11/2012: Assigning agents to a line

Jens Leth Hougaard, Juan D. Moreno-Ternero and Lars Peter Østerdal ()
Additional contact information
Jens Leth Hougaard: University of Copenhagen
Juan D. Moreno-Ternero: Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and CORE, Univeristé catholique de Louvain
Lars Peter Østerdal: Department of Business and Economics, Postal: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark

Abstract: We consider the problem of assigning agents to a facility, represented by slots on a line, where only one agent can be served at a time. There is a finite number of agents, and each one wants to be served as close as possible to his preferred slot. We first consider deterministic assignment of agents to slots. We characterize (Pareto) efficiency in such setting and provide an algorithm for testing if a given deterministic assignment is efficient. We also characterize utilitarianism (minimization of the total gap between preferred and assigned slots) and provide a quick algorithm for testing if a given deterministic assignment is utilitarian. We then consider probabilistic assignment of agents to slots. In such framework, we characterize, making use of the previous algorithms, a method which is ordinally efficient and utilitarian.

Keywords: Random assignment; ordinal efficiency; ex post efficiency; congested facility; utilitarianism

JEL-codes: C78; D61; D63

35 pages, July 1, 2012

Full text files

dpbe11_2012.pdf PDF-file Full text

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Astrid Holm Nielsen ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:13:32.