IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2005.07253.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Design for Congested Social Services: Optimal Need-Based Persuasion

Author

Listed:
  • Jerry Anunrojwong
  • Krishnamurthy Iyer
  • Vahideh Manshadi

Abstract

We study the effectiveness of information design in reducing congestion in social services catering to users with varied levels of need. In the absence of price discrimination and centralized admission, the provider relies on sharing information about wait times to improve welfare. We consider a stylized model with heterogeneous users who differ in their private outside options: low-need users have an acceptable outside option to the social service, whereas high-need users have no viable outside option. Upon arrival, a user decides to wait for the service by joining an unobservable first-come-first-serve queue, or leave and seek her outside option. To reduce congestion and improve social outcomes, the service provider seeks to persuade more low-need users to avail their outside option, and thus better serve high-need users. We characterize the Pareto-optimal signaling mechanisms and compare their welfare outcomes against several benchmarks. We show that if either type is the overwhelming majority of the population, information design does not provide improvement over sharing full information or no information. On the other hand, when the population is a mixture of the two types, information design not only Pareto dominates full-information and no-information mechanisms, in some regimes it also achieves the same welfare as the "first-best", i.e., the Pareto-optimal centralized admission policy with knowledge of users' types.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerry Anunrojwong & Krishnamurthy Iyer & Vahideh Manshadi, 2020. "Information Design for Congested Social Services: Optimal Need-Based Persuasion," Papers 2005.07253, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2005.07253
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.07253
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergemann, Dirk & Morris, Stephen, 2016. "Bayes correlated equilibrium and the comparison of information structures in games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    2. Erjie Ang & Sara Kwasnick & Mohsen Bayati & Erica L. Plambeck & Michael Aratow, 2016. "Accurate Emergency Department Wait Time Prediction," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 141-156, February.
    3. Baccara, Mariagiovanna & Lee, SangMok & Yariv, Leeat, 2020. "Optimal dynamic matching," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    4. Nick Arnosti & Peng Shi, 2020. "Design of Lotteries and Wait-Lists for Affordable Housing Allocation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2291-2307, June.
    5. Canice Prendergast, 2017. "How Food Banks Use Markets to Feed the Poor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 145-162, Fall.
    6. David Lingenbrink & Krishnamurthy Iyer, 2019. "Optimal Signaling Mechanisms in Unobservable Queues," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 1397-1416, September.
    7. Naor, P, 1969. "The Regulation of Queue Size by Levying Tolls," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(1), pages 15-24, January.
    8. Itai Ashlagi & Maximilien Burq & Patrick Jaillet & Vahideh Manshadi, 2019. "On Matching and Thickness in Heterogeneous Dynamic Markets," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(4), pages 927-949, July.
    9. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    10. Jerry Anunrojwong & Krishnamurthy Iyer & David Lingenbrink, 2024. "Persuading Risk-Conscious Agents: A Geometric Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 72(1), pages 151-166, January.
    11. Gad Allon & Achal Bassamboo & Itai Gurvich, 2011. "“We Will Be Right with You”: Managing Customer Expectations with Vague Promises and Cheap Talk," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1382-1394, December.
    12. Santiago R. Balseiro & Huseyin Gurkan & Peng Sun, 2019. "Multiagent Mechanism Design Without Money," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 1417-1436, September.
    13. Itai Feigenbaum & Yash Kanoria & Irene Lo & Jay Sethuraman, 2020. "Dynamic Matching in School Choice: Efficient Seat Reassignment After Late Cancellations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5341-5361, November.
    14. Ilan Kremer & Yishay Mansour & Motty Perry, 2014. "Implementing the "Wisdom of the Crowd"," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(5), pages 988-1012.
    15. Nikhil Agarwal & Itai Ashlagi & Michael A. Rees & Paulo J. Somaini & Daniel C. Waldinger, 2019. "Equilibrium Allocations under Alternative Waitlist Designs: Evidence from Deceased Donor Kidneys," NBER Working Papers 25607, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Yiangos Papanastasiou & Kostas Bimpikis & Nicos Savva, 2018. "Crowdsourcing Exploration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1727-1746, April.
    17. Agarwal, Nikhil & Ashlagi, Itai & Rees, Michael & Somaini, Paulo & Waldinger, Daniel, 2019. "An Empirical Framework for Sequential Assignment: The Allocation of Deceased Donor Kidneys," Research Papers 3724, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    18. Rouba Ibrahim, 2018. "Sharing delay information in service systems: a literature survey," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 49-79, June.
    19. Hassin, Refael, 1986. "Consumer Information in Markets with Random Product Quality: The Case of Queues and Balking," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1185-1195, September.
    20. Kanoria, Yash & Saban, Daniela, 2017. "Facilitating the Search for Partners on Matching Platforms: Restricting Agents' Actions," Research Papers 3572, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    21. Kostas Bimpikis & Shayan Ehsani & Mohamed Mostagir, 2019. "Designing Dynamic Contests," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 339-356, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Charlson, G., 2022. "In platforms we trust: misinformation on social networks in the presence of social mistrust," Janeway Institute Working Papers 2202, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Zheng, Shiyuan & Jia, Rongwen & Shang, Wen-Long & Fu, Xiaowen & Wang, Kun, 2023. "Promote transport facility Resilience: Persuasion or Subsidy?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Krishnamurthy Iyer & Haifeng Xu & You Zu, 2023. "Markov Persuasion Processes with Endogenous Agent Beliefs," Papers 2307.03181, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    4. Modibo Camara & Jason Hartline & Aleck Johnsen, 2020. "Mechanisms for a No-Regret Agent: Beyond the Common Prior," Papers 2009.05518, arXiv.org.
    5. Charlson, G., 2022. "In platforms we trust: misinformation on social networks in the presence of social mistrust," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2204, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kimon Drakopoulos & Shobhit Jain & Ramandeep Randhawa, 2021. "Persuading Customers to Buy Early: The Value of Personalized Information Provisioning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 828-853, February.
    2. David Lingenbrink & Krishnamurthy Iyer, 2019. "Optimal Signaling Mechanisms in Unobservable Queues," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 1397-1416, September.
    3. Jerry Anunrojwong & Krishnamurthy Iyer & David Lingenbrink, 2024. "Persuading Risk-Conscious Agents: A Geometric Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 72(1), pages 151-166, January.
    4. Pengfei Guo & Moshe Haviv & Zhenwei Luo & Yulan Wang, 2022. "Optimal queue length information disclosure when service quality is uncertain," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(5), pages 1912-1927, May.
    5. Tesnim Naceur & Yezekael Hayel, 2020. "Deterministic state-based information disclosure policies and social welfare maximization in strategic queueing systems," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 303-328, December.
    6. Dimitrios Logothetis & Antonis Economou, 2023. "The impact of information on transportation systems with strategic customers," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(7), pages 2189-2206, July.
    7. Shivam Gupta & Wei Chen & Milind Dawande & Ganesh Janakiraman, 2023. "Three Years, Two Papers, One Course Off: Optimal Nonmonetary Reward Policies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2852-2869, May.
    8. Schummer, James, 2021. "Influencing waiting lists," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    9. Thomas Mariotti & Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech & Jonas von Wangenheim, 2023. "Information Nudges and Self-Control," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2182-2197, April.
    10. Siddharth Prakash Singh & Mohammad Delasay & Alan Scheller‐Wolf, 2023. "Real‐time delay announcement under competition," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(3), pages 863-881, March.
    11. Francis de Véricourt, & Huseyin Gurkan, & Shouqiang Wang,, 2020. "Informing the public about a pandemic," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-20-03, ESMT European School of Management and Technology, revised 11 Feb 2021.
    12. Ozan Candogan & Kimon Drakopoulos, 2020. "Optimal Signaling of Content Accuracy: Engagement vs. Misinformation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 497-515, March.
    13. Rouba Ibrahim, 2018. "Sharing delay information in service systems: a literature survey," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 49-79, June.
    14. Dughmi, Shaddin, 2019. "On the hardness of designing public signals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 609-625.
    15. Opher Baron & Antonis Economou & Athanasia Manou, 2022. "Increasing social welfare with delays: Strategic customers in the M/G/1 orbit queue," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(7), pages 2907-2924, July.
    16. Saed Alizamir & Francis de Véricourt & Shouqiang Wang, 2020. "Warning Against Recurring Risks: An Information Design Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4612-4629, October.
    17. Nur Sunar & Yichen Tu & Serhan Ziya, 2021. "Pooled vs. Dedicated Queues when Customers Are Delay-Sensitive," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3785-3802, June.
    18. Yishay Mansour & Aleksandrs Slivkins & Vasilis Syrgkanis, 2019. "Bayesian Incentive-Compatible Bandit Exploration," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 1132-1161, July.
    19. Zhongbin Wang & Yunan Liu & Lei Fang, 2022. "Pay to activate service in vacation queues," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(6), pages 2609-2627, June.
    20. Jianfu Wang & Ming Hu, 2020. "Efficient Inaccuracy: User-Generated Information Sharing in a Queue," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4648-4666, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2005.07253. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.