Optimal Assignment of Durable Objects to Successive Agents

Francis Bloch (1) , Nicolas Houy (1)

1 X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique

This paper analyzes the assignment of durable objects to successive generations of agents who live for two periods. The optimal assignment rule is stationary, favors old agents and is determined by a selectivity function which satisfies an iterative functional differential equation. More patient social planners are more selective, as are social planners facing distributions of types with higher probabilities for higher types. The paper also characterizes optimal assignment rules when monetary transfers are allowed and agents face a recovery cost, when agents' types are private information and when agents can invest to improve their types.

Mots clés: Dynamic Assignment; Durable Objects; Revenue Management; Dynamic Mechanism Design; Overlapping Generations; Promotions and Intertemporal Assignments

Domaines: Economies et finances

Francis Bloch, Nicolas Houy. Optimal Assignment of Durable Objects to Successive Agents. 2009. ⟨hal-00435385⟩