arXiv subjects

Teddy Mekonnen

Publications and source records attributed to Teddy Mekonnen.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Diversity as Majorization

How should institutions compare group diversity, and which group should they select when they value diversity and merit? We take a target-based approach that evaluates the entire group composition without treating any type as intrinsically diversity-enhancing. Because different diversity indices may rank groups differently, we instead adapt majorization to construct an ordinal diversity preorder. We show that its maximally diverse selections are exactly those maximizing every index in a broad class. This characterization yields a reserve-and-quota policy that selects a maximally diverse group and, among such groups, the highest-merit agents. Any alternative is less diverse, less meritorious, or both.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

Distributional Preferences for Market Design

Institutions selecting students, employees, or members value both about who is selected and the resulting group's composition. We study ``distributional'' preferences over group composition, and identify an upper-bound property and two exchange properties. With the upper-bound property, the exchange properties are necessary and sufficient for two results: the greedy rule is the unique choice rule that is non-wasteful, distributionally maximal, and free of justified envy; it is also path independent. In matching markets, deferred acceptance is the unique mechanism satisfying the three axioms, individual rationality, and strategy-proofness. Our framework accommodates intersectional identities and subsumes models based on reserves and matroids.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

Endogenous Inequality Aversion: Decision criteria for triage and other ethical tradeoffs

Medical ``Crisis Standards of Care'' call for a utilitarian allocation of scarce resources in public emergencies, whereas standards of care under normal conditions place relatively greater priority on the worst-off. Inspired by such triage rules, we study social welfare criteria whose distributive trade-offs depend on society's well-being, as captured by aggregate welfare. Because the welfare level determines the applicable aggregation criterion, while that criterion in turn determines welfare, the resulting criteria are self-referential. We provide an axiomatic foundation for a family of welfare criteria that become more utilitarian as aggregate welfare falls and more Rawlsian as it rises, thereby formalizing triage guidelines. We also characterize the converse case, in which priority to the worst-off increases as aggregate welfare falls.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

Luck Out or Outpay? Competing with a Public Option

This paper analyzes the strategic interactions between a profit-maximizing monopolist and a free, capacity-constrained public option. By restricting its own supply, the monopolist intentionally congests the public option and induces rationing, which increases consumers' willingness to pay for guaranteed access. Counterintuitively, expanding the public option's capacity may raise the monopoly price and lower consumer welfare. I derive conditions under which all buyer types benefit from a capacity expansion, and extend these results to a setting where an oligopoly competes with a public option. These findings have implications for mixed public-private markets, such as housing, education, and healthcare.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2026

Competition, Persuasion, and Search

How does competition in markets for information affect the creation and division of surplus? We study this question in a search environment in which an agent searches sequentially for a high-quality good and learns about the quality of sampled goods by repeatedly purchasing signals from profit-maximizing information brokers. Brokers design and price signals but can commit only to spot contracts. We characterize the equilibrium payoff set as a function of the market structure -- the number of competing brokers. When search costs are low, market structure affects neither surplus generation nor its division. When costs are high, however, competition benefits the agent but reduces total surplus relative to monopoly. Methodologically, we extend repeated-games theory to stopping problems such as sequential search.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

Diversity in Choice as Majorization

We propose a framework that uses majorization to model diversity and representativeness in school admissions. We generalize the standard notion of majorization to accommodate arbitrary distributional targets, such as a student body that reflects the population served by the school. Building on this framework, we introduce and axiomatically characterize the $r$-targeting Schur choice rule, which balances diversity and priority in admissions. We show that this rule is optimal: any alternative rule must either leave seats unfilled, reduce diversity, or admit lower-priority students. The rule satisfies path independence (and substitutability), which guarantees desirable outcomes in matching markets. Our work contributes to the ongoing discourse on market design by providing a new and flexible framework for improving diversity and representation.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

How to Segment a Search Market: Information Design and Directed Search

This paper examines when the public provision of information in search markets improves welfare. I consider a two-sided frictional search market in which buyers match with vertically differentiated sellers. The market is segmented into submarkets based on seller types. Such segmentation serves as a public signal that buyers use to direct their search. Given a segmentation, I characterize both the socially efficient and the equilibrium allocation of buyers across submarkets, and identify a Hosios-type condition under which the equilibrium allocation is efficient. I then analyze the design of surplus-maximizing segmentations, showing that the nature of search externalities determines when the constrained-efficient segmentation fully separates seller types or pools them into at most a binary partition.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2024

Persuaded Search

We consider sequential search by an agent who cannot observe the quality of goods but can acquire information by buying signals from a profit-maximizing principal with limited commitment power. The principal can charge higher prices for more informative signals in any period, but high prices in the future discourage continued search by the agent, thereby reducing the principal's future profits. A unique stationary equilibrium outcome exists, and we show that the principal $(i)$ induces the socially efficient stopping rule, $(ii)$ extracts the full surplus, and $(iii)$ persuades the agent against settling for marginal goods, extending the duration of surplus extraction. However, introducing an additional, free source of information can lead to inefficiency in equilibrium.

econ.TH↗