Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: The Multiple-Volunteers Principle for Assigning Unpleasant and Pleasant Tasks
Author-Name: Susanne Goldluecke
Author-Email: susanne.goldluecke@uni-konstanz.de
Author-Name: Thomas Troeger
Author-Email: troeger@uni-mannheim.de
Classification-JEL: H41, D82
Keywords: volunteers’ dilemma, mechanism design without transfers, binary-action mechanism


Abstract:  We present a class of simple transfer-free rules that are very effective tools for assigning
an unpleasant task among a group of agents: agents decide simultaneously whether or not to
“volunteer”; if the number of volunteers exceeds a threshold number, the task is assigned to a
volunteer; if the number is below the threshold, the task is assigned to a non-volunteer.
In a setting in which agents have non-trivial preferences over who performs the task, such
a threshold rule is utilitarian optimal across all binary-action rules. In a large group, the first
best is reached approximately via a threshold rule with a large threshold. Threshold rules have a
robust-improvement property: any rule with a non-extreme threshold always has an equilibrium
that yields a strict interim Pareto improvement over a random task assignment. We show that
assigning the task to a non-volunteer rather than randomly among all agents if the threshold is
not reached is crucial for this result. Such a uniformly-random default, however, is utilitarian
optimal if ex-post participation constraints are imposed, and is still good enough to approximate
the first best in a large population. The results can be adapted to the problem of assigning a
pleasant task.



Note: 
Length: 64
Creation-Date: 2023-09
Revision-Date:
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp464
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2023_464