IE Seminar: “Scrip Systems with Minimal Availability,” Süleyman Kerimov (Stanford University), EA-409, 1:40PM December 14 (EN)

Scrip systems with minimal availability

Süleyman Kerimov
Department of Management Science and Engineering
Stanford University

December 14, Friday, 13:40
Place: EA 409

We consider an infinite horizon model with finitely many agents in which at each time period, one agent requests service, one agent provides service, and the service requester pays one scrip to the service provider. We analyze the scrip distribution when only few agents are available to provide service where among the available agents, the one with the lowest number of scrips provides service. Using ideas from the literature on the power of two choices, we identify conditions under which the scrip distribution is balanced in the sense that agents will not deviate by much from their initial endowment, with high probability. This implies that in a strategic environment, efficiency can be obtained with minimal service availability as agents will have no incentive to defect from providing service. Our results suggest that scrip systems are likely to lead to efficient outcomes in kidney exchange platforms that currently experience free riding. (joint work with Itai Ashlagi).