Signaling and Matching

该奖项为匹配和信号传递的经济理论研究提供资金。许多经济和社会互动都被很好地描述为“双边”市场。例如，学生与学校、居民与医院、工人与公司的匹配。经济学家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匹配的结果，这样参与的个人就可以评估任何可能匹配的好处。这一假设不太现实。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测试(如SAT)和其他能力信号。当申请者了解到测试和其他信号将被用来评估潜在的能力时，他们将为测试做准备，并试图操纵信号。这增加了这样的考试准备将使学校更难准确评估申请者的能力的可能性，导致学校使用额外的标准来评估学生(例如课外活动)。申请者当然会通过改变他们的课外行为来回应这一点。其结果是，各大学都在关注各种学校课外活动、体育活动、小提琴作文、发起慈善活动等，结果是一场军备竞赛。学生们随后会参与这些活动，因为尽管当每个人都在这样做的时候，这些活动的信号价值很小，但不参与会成为一个负面信号。就业市场也可能存在类似的动态。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者的标准，以及申请者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(申请者)具有私下知道的能力，而另一方(学校或公司)则使用信号来推断学生的能力。在没有考试准备的情况下，标准的肯定分类匹配将使更高信号的学生与更高质量的学校相匹配。备考是学生的战略选择，它会影响学校对能力的推断，很可能会降低考试的信息量。考试分数的信息性降低导致学校增加了与能力相关的额外信号变量，例如，参加高级选修(AP)课程。虽然在没有操控的情况下，上过AP课程可能会提供有关能力的信息，但一旦学生们了解到大学重视这一点，许多对这些课程不感兴趣的学生可能会把这些课程作为他们能力的信号。这降低了该信号的信息量，就像准备考试降低了测试的信息量一样。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生性。了解这种内生性的本质将揭示不同活动的易操纵性，从而揭示信号活动均衡集随时间的稳定性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.