Abstract
Non-wastefulness is a commonly used efficiency criterion for random assignments in discrete allocation problems when agents may regard some objects as unacceptable. We study the source of wastefulness in randomization. We distinguish between the type of wastefulness that exists only from an ex-ante view and the type of wastefulness that can be ex-post realized, and provide characterizations. We prove three theorems showing that strategy-proof and fair mechanisms must find wasteful random assignments for some problems and their wastefulness can be ex-post realized.
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I am grateful to the editor Nicholas Yannelis, an associate editor and two anonymous referees for comments. I acknowledge financial support by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 72122009, 72033004, and 71903093).
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Zhang, J. On wastefulness of random assignments in discrete allocation problems. Econ Theory 76, 289–310 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-022-01459-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-022-01459-9