Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T20:21:25.346Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The normative gap: mechanism design and ideal theories of justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2019

Zoë Hitzig Open the ORCID record for Zoë Hitzig [Opens in a new window]
Zoë Hitzig*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Harvard University, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between economic theory and theories of justice in the design of public policy. In particular, it focuses on the role of mechanism design in policy contexts beset with issues of social, racial and distributive justice. Economists’ involvement in redesigning Boston’s algorithm for allocating K-12 students to public schools serves as an instructive case study. The paper draws on the distinction between ideal theory and non-ideal theory in political philosophy and the concept of performativity in economic sociology to argue that mechanism design can enact elaborate ideal theories of justice. A normative gap thus emerges between the goals of the policymakers and the objectives of economic designs. As a result, mechanism design may obstruct stakeholders’ avenues for normative criticism of public policies, and serve as a technology of depoliticization.

Keywords

mechanism designschool choiceideal theoryperformativity
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , November 2020 , pp. 407 - 434
Check for updates
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdulkadiroğlu, A. and Sönmez, T. 2003. School choice: a mechanism design approach. American Economic Review 93(3), 729–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Pathak, P.A. and Roth, A.E. 2005a. The New York City high school match. American Economic Review 95(2), 364–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Pathak, P.A., Roth, A.E. and Sönmez, T. 2005b. The Boston public school match. American Economic Review 95(2), 368–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Pathak, P., Roth, A.E. and Sönmez, T. 2006. Changing the Boston school choice mechanism: strategy-proofness as equal access. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper No. 11965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Pathak, P.A. and Roth, A.E. 2009. Strategy-proofness versus efficiency in matching with indifferences: redesigning the NYC high school match. American Economic Review 99(5), 1954–1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Angrist, J.D., Hull, P.D. and Pathak, P.A. 2016. Charters without lotteries: testing takeovers in New Orleans and Boston. American Economic Review 106(7), 1878–1920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Che, Y.-K., Pathak, P.A., Roth, A.E. and Tercieux, O. 2017. Minimizing justified envy in school choice: the design of New Orleans’ OneApp. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper No. 23265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akbarpour, M. and van Dijk, W. 2018. School choice with unequal outside options. http://web.stanford.edu/mohamwad/OutsideOptions.pdf.Google Scholar
Alexandrova, A. 2008. Making models count. Philosophy of Science 75(3), 383–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alves, M.J. and Willie, C.V. 1987. Controlled choice assignments: a new and more effective approach to school desegregation. Urban Review 19(2), 67–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, E. 2010. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R.J. 1989. Equality and equal opportunity for welfare. Philosophical Studies 56(1), 77–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R.J. 1991. A defense of equal opportunity for welfare. Philosophical Studies 62(2), 187–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R.J. 1999. Equality of opportunity for welfare defended and recanted. Journal of Political Philosophy 7(4), 488–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, J.L. 1955–1962. How To Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aygün, O. and Bo, I. 2013. College admission with multidimensional reserves: the Brazilian affirmative action case. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3071751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagde, S., Epple, D. and Taylor, L. 2016. Does affirmative action work? Caste, gender, college quality, and academic success in India. American Economic Review 106(6), 1495–1521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, B. 1989. Theories of Justice, Vol. 1. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. 1994. Playing Fair: Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Binmore, K. 1998. Just Playing: Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boldyrev, I. and Svetlova, E., eds 2016. Enacting Dismal Science: New Perspectives on the Performativity of Economics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boston Public Schools 2005. Recommendation to implement a new BPS algorithm. (May 11). http://boston.k12.ma.us/assignment/.Google Scholar
Boston School Committee, Office of the Secretary 1984. School committee secretary desegregation files (1963–1984). City of Boston, Office of the City Clerk, Archives and Records.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, R. 1955. Theory of Games as a Tool for the Moral Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Breslau, D. 2012. What do market designers do when they design markets? In Social Knowledge in the Making, eds Camic, C., Gross, N. and Lamont, M.. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Breslau, D. 2013. Designing a market-like entity: economics in the politics of market formation. Social Studies of Science 43(6), 829–851.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown v . Board of Education of Topeka 1954. 347 F. Supp. 483 (United States Supreme Court, 17 May).Google Scholar
Budish, E., Che, Y.-K., Kojima, F. and Milgrom, P. 2013. Designing random allocation mechanisms: theory and applications. American Economic Review 103(2), 585–623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callon, M. 1998a. The embeddedness of economic markets in economics. Sociological Review 46(S1), 1–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callon, M., ed. 1998b. The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cook, G. 2003. School assignment flaws detailed: two economists study problem, offer relief. Boston Globe, 12 September.Google Scholar
Crooks, R.N. 2019. Times thirty: access, maintenance, and justice. Science, Technology, & Human Values 44(1), 118–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delmont, M.F. 2016. Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubins, L.E. and Freedman, D.A. 1981. Machiavelli and the Gale–Shapley algorithm. American Mathematical Monthly 88(7), 485–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dur, U., Kominers, S.D., Pathak, P.A. and Sönmez, T. 2018. Reserve design: unintended consequences and the demise of Boston’s walk zones. Journal of Political Economy 126(6), 2457–2479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, R. 1981a. What is equality? Part 1: Equality of welfare. Philosophy & Public Affairs 10(3), 185–246.Google Scholar
Dworkin, R. 1981b. What is equality? Part 2: Equality of resources. Philosophy & Public Affairs 10(4), 283–345.Google Scholar
Echenique, F. and Yenmez, M.B. 2015. How to control controlled school choice. American Economic Review 105(8), 2679–2694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erdil, A. and Kumano, T. 2012. Prioritizing diversity in school choice. Unpublished working paper, Washington University.Google Scholar
Formisano, R.P. 2004. Boston against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gale, D. and Shapley, L.S. 1962. College admissions and the stability of marriage. American Mathematical Monthly 69(1), 9–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, H. 1956. Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology 61(5), 420–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, D. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guala, F. 2001. Building economic machines: the FCC auctions. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 32(3), 453–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafalir, I.E., Yenmez, M.B. and Yildirim, M.A. 2013. Effective affirmative action in school choice. Theoretical Economics 8(2), 325–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harsanyi, J. 1955. Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics, and interpersonal comparisons of utility. Journal of Political Economy 63(4), 309–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D.M. 2011. Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D.M. and McPherson, M.S. 2006. Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitzig, Z., Hu, L. and Viljoen, S. 2019. The technological politics of mechanism design. University of Chicago Law Review 87(1). Symposium on Radical Markets.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, A.L. 2019. Where fairness fails: data, algorithms, and the limits of antidiscrimination discourse. Information, Communication & Society 22(7), 900–915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalai, E. 1977. Proportional solutions to bargaining situations: intertemporal utility comparisons. Econometrica 45(5), 1623–1630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalai, E. and Smorodinsky, M. 1975. Other solutions to Nash’s bargaining problem. Econometrica 43(3), 513–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplow, L. and Shavell, S. 2009. Fairness versus Welfare. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kesten, O. 2010. School choice with consent. Quarterly Journal of Economics 125(3), 1297–1348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kojima, F. 2012. School choice: impossibilities for affirmative action. Games and Economic Behavior 75(2), 685–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kominers, S.D. and Sönmez, T. 2016. Matching with slot-specific priorities: theory. Theoretical Economics 11(2), 683–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landsmark, T. and Dajer, H. 2004. Student assignment task force. Report and Recommendations of the Boston Public Schools.Google Scholar
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Li, S. 2017. Ethics and market design. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 33(4), 705–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKenzie, D.A., Muniesa, F. and Siu, L., eds 2007. Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C.W. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C.W. 2003. From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Mills, C.W. 2005. ‘Ideal theory’ as ideology. Hypatia 20(3), 165–183.Google Scholar
Mirowski, P., Nik-Khah, E. and MacKenzie, D. 2007. Markets made flesh: Callon, performativity and the FCC spectrum auctions. In Performativity in the Economic Sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan v. Hennigan 1974. 379 F. Supp. 410 (District Court of Massachusetts, 21 June).Google Scholar
Naimark, S. 2012. The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools. Amherst, MA: Levellers Press.Google Scholar
Nash, J. 1950. The bargaining problem. Econometrica 18(2), 155–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pateman, C. and Mills, C.W. 2007. Contract and Domination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pathak, P.A. 2011. The mechanism design approach to student assignment. Annual Review of Economics 3(1), 513–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pathak, P.A. and Sönmez, T. 2008. Leveling the playing field: sincere and sophisticated players in the Boston mechanism. American Economic Review 98(4), 1636–1652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pathak, P.A. and Sönmez, T. 2013. School admissions reform in Chicago and England: comparing mechanisms by their vulnerability to manipulation. American Economic Review 103(1), 80–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinch, T. and Swedberg, R., eds 2008. Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, T. 1995. Trust in Numbers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1958. Justice as fairness. Philosophical Review 67(2), 164–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, W.M. 1974. The Racist Offensive Against Busing: The Lessons of Boston; How to Fight Back. College Park, NY: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Reiss, J. 2013. Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richer, M. 1998. Busing’s Boston massacre. Hoover Institute: Policy Review 92, 42.Google Scholar
Roth, A.E. 1982 a. The economics of matching: stability and incentives. Mathematics of Operations Research 7(4), 617–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, A.E. 1982 b. Incentive compatibility in a market with indivisible goods. Economics Letters 9(2), 127–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, A.E. 1991. A natural experiment in the organization of entry-level labor markets: regional markets for new physicians and surgeons in the United Kingdom. American Economic Review 81(3), 415–440.Google ScholarPubMed
Roth, A.E. 2002. The economist as engineer: game theory, experimentation, and computation as tools for design economics. Econometrica 70(4), 1341–1378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, A.E. 2007. Repugnance as a constraint on markets. Journal of Economic Perspectives 21(3), 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schon, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Seelye, K. 2013 a. Boston schools drop last remnant of forced busing. New York Times, 14 March.Google Scholar
Seelye, K. 2013 b. No division required in this school problem. New York Times, 12 March.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 2006. What do we want from a theory of justice? Journal of Philosophy 103(5), 215–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. 2011. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shapley, L. and Scarf, H. 1974. On cores and indivisibility. Journal of Mathematical Economics 1(1), 23–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, J.B. 1984. The Boston School Integration Dispute: Social Change and Legal Maneuvers. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shelby, T. 2003. Race and social justice: Rawlsian considerations. Fordham Law Review 72, 1697.Google Scholar
Shelby, T. 2013. Racial realities and corrective justice: a reply to Charles Mills. Critical Philosophy of Race 1(2), 145–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, P. 2015. Guiding school-choice reform through novel applications of operations research. Interfaces 45(2), 117–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A.J. 2010. Ideal and nonideal theory. Philosophy & Public Affairs 38(1), 5–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tager, J. 2001. Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Varian, H.R. 1975. Distributive justice, welfare economics, and the theory of fairness. Philosophy & Public Affairs 4(3), 223–247.Google Scholar
Vaznis, J. 2009. Boston shelves 5-zone proposal. Boston Globe, 27 August.Google Scholar