Giving Away Public Resources
Nick Arnosti studies how to give things away. Many important resources — such as organs from deceased donors, subsidized housing, and visas — are not sold to the highest bidder, but rather allocated using waiting lists, priority systems, and lotteries. Dr Arnosti’s work analyzes existing policies, and offers guidance on how to improve them. His work considers both efficiency (with goals such as increasing organ utilization and matching applicants to suitable apartments) and fairness (with goals such as targeting resources to those with the greatest need, or dividing them equitably among different groups of applicants). It also accounts for the fact that applicants may strategically adjust their behavior in response to policy changes. Dr Arnosti teaches a course titled “Engineering the Allocation of Public Resources”, and maintains a research blog.