Mechanism Design meets Priority Design: Redesigning the US Armys Branching Process


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Army cadets obtain occupations through a centralized process. Three objectives -- increasing retention, aligning talent, and enhancing trust -- have guided reforms to this process since 2006. West Points mechanism for the Class of 2020 exacerbated challenges implementing Army policy aims. We formulate these desiderata as axioms and study their implications theoretically and with administrative data. We show that the Armys objectives not only determine an allocation mechanism, but also a specific priority policy, a uniqueness result that integrates mechanism and priority design. These results led to a re-design of the mechanism, now adopted at both West Point and ROTC.

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