Signaling and Matching

该奖项资助匹配和信号的经济理论研究。许多经济和社会的相互作用被很好地描述为双边市场。例如，将学生与学校、居民与医院以及工人与公司配对。经济学家已经使用经济理论的工具研究了所有这些情况。这项研究通常假设所有各方都知道任何可能的匹配的后果，因此参与者可以评估任何可能的匹配的好处。这种假设并不十分现实。例如，大学并不直接知道申请者的能力。然而，他们确实有机会参加考试（如SAT）和其他能力的标志。当申请人了解到测试和其他信号将被用来评估潜在的能力时，他们将为测试做好准备，并试图操纵这些信号。这增加了这样的可能性，即这种考试准备将使学校更难以准确评估申请人的能力，导致学校使用额外的标准来评估学生（如课外活动）。申请人当然会通过改变他们的课外行为来回应这一点。其结果是与大学的军备竞赛，看各种学校的课外活动，体育参与，小提琴作品，开始慈善机构，等等学生然后从事这些活动，因为即使他们的信号值是小的，当每个人都这样做，不参与成为一个负面信号。就业市场可能也存在类似的动态。该奖项将资助研究，以了解管理组织之间这种战略互动的潜在力量，这些组织选择评估申请人的标准，以及申请人对越来越苛刻的标准的反应。基本模型将是一个不完全信息的双边市场。一方（申请人）私下里知道学生的能力，而另一方（学校或公司）则通过信号来推断学生的能力。在没有考试准备的情况下，标准的积极主动匹配将使信号更高的学生与质量更高的学校匹配。考试准备是学生的一种战略选择，它会影响学校对能力的推断，很可能会降低考试的信息量。考试成绩信息量的下降导致学校增加了与能力相关的额外信号变量，例如，参加高级安置（AP）课程。虽然在没有操纵的情况下，参加AP课程可能会提供有关能力的信息，但一旦学生了解到大学关注这一点，许多对这些课程不感兴趣的学生可能会参加这些课程来“表明”他们的能力。这降低了信号的信息量，就像考试准备降低了考试的信息量一样。调查的一个中心焦点是不知情的学校选择的潜在信号的内涵。了解这种内禀的性质将揭示不同活动的操纵的脆弱性，因此随着时间的推移，信号活动的平衡集的稳定性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This award funds research in the economic theory of matching and signaling. Many economic and social interactions are well "described as two" sided markets. Examples include matching students to schools, residents to hospitals and workers to firms. Economists have studied all of these situations using the tools of economic theory. This research typically assumes that all parties know the consequences from any possible match, so that participating individuals can evaluate the benefits of any possible match. This assumption is not very realistic. For example, colleges do not directly know the ability of applicants. They do however have access to tests (such as the SAT) and other signals of ability. When applicants understand that tests and other signals will be used to assess underlying ability, they will prepare for the tests as well as attempt to manipulate the signals. This raises the possibility that such test preparation will make it more difficult for schools to accurately evaluate the ability of applicants, leading to schools using additional criteria to evaluate students (such as extracurricular activities). Applicants will of course respond to this by changing their extracurricular behavior. The result is an arms race with colleges looking at various school extracurricular activities, athletic participation, violin compositions, starting charities, etc. Students then engage in these activities because even though their signaling value is small when everyone is doing so, not engaging becomes a negative signal. A similar dynamic may exist in job markets. This award will fund research to understand the underlying forces that govern this kind of strategic interaction between organizations who choose the criteria by which to evaluate applicants and the response of applicants to increasingly more demanding criteria. The basic model will be a two-sided market of incomplete information. One side (applicants) have privately known abilities while the other side (schools or firms) use signals to infer the ability of students. In the absence of test preparation, standard positive assortative matching will match higher signaling students with higher quality schools. Test prep is a strategic choice by students that influences the inferences schools will make about ability, quite possibly decreasing the informativeness of the test. The decreased informativeness of test scores leads schools to add additional signaling variables related to ability, for example, taking advanced placement (AP) courses. While in the absence of manipulation, having taken AP courses might be informative about ability, once students learn that colleges pay attention to this, many students who have no interest in those courses may take them to "signal" their ability. This decreases the informativeness of this signal, just as test prep decreased the informativeness of tests. A central focus of the investigation is the endogeneity of potential signals chosen by the uninformed schools. Understanding the nature of this endogeneity will shed light on the vulnerability to manipulation of different activities and so the stability over time of equilibrium sets of signaling activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.