Mechanism design for pandemics.

IF 0.3 4区经济学 Q4 ECONOMICS

Review of Economic Design Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Epub Date: 2022-01-03 DOI:10.1007/s10058-021-00270-7

Eric Maskin

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Under normal circumstances, competitive markets do an excellent job of supplying the goods that members of society want and need. But in an emergency like a pandemic, unassisted markets may not suffice. Imagine, for example, that society suddenly needs to obtain tens (or even hundreds) of millions of COVID-19 virus test kits a week. Test kits for this virus are a new product, and so it may not even be clear who the relevant set of manufacturers are. If we had the luxury of time, a laissez-faire market might identify these manufacturers: the price of test kits would adjust until supply matched demand. But getting a new market of this size to equilibrate quickly is unrealistic. Furthermore, markets don't work well when there are concentrations of power on either the buying or selling side, as there might well be here. Finally, a test is, in part, a public good (its benefits go not just to the person being tested, but everyone he might come in contact with), and markets do not usually provide public goods adequately. Fortunately, mechanism design can be enlisted to help.

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大流行病的机制设计。

在正常情况下，竞争性市场能够很好地提供社会成员想要和需要的商品。但在类似大流行病这样的紧急情况下，没有市场的帮助可能是不够的。例如，设想一下，社会突然需要每周获得数千万（甚至数亿）个 COVID-19 病毒检测试剂盒。这种病毒的检测试剂盒是一种新产品，因此可能连相关的制造商是谁都不清楚。如果我们有足够的时间，一个自由放任的市场可能会找出这些生产商：检测试剂盒的价格会随之调整，直到供不应求为止。但是，让一个如此规模的新市场迅速达到平衡是不现实的。此外，当买方或卖方力量集中时，市场就无法很好地发挥作用，而这里很可能就存在这种情况。最后，测试在某种程度上是一种公共产品（其好处不仅惠及接受测试的人，还惠及他可能接触到的所有人），而市场通常不会充分提供公共产品。幸运的是，机制设计可以提供帮助。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Review of Economic Design ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

0.80

自引率

28.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： Review of Economic Design comprises the creative art and science of inventing, analyzing and testing economic as well as social and political institutions and mechanisms aimed at achieving individual objectives and social goals. In this age of Economic Design, the accumulated traditions and wealth of knowledge in normative and positive economics and the strategic analysis of game theory are applied with novel ideas in the creative tasks of designing and assembling diverse legal-economic instruments. These include constitutions and other assignments of rights, mechanisms for allocation or regulation, tax and incentive schemes, contract forms, voting and other choice aggregation procedures, markets, auctions, organizational forms, such as partnerships, together with supporting membership and other property rights, and information systems. These designs, the methods of analysis used in their scrutiny, as well as the mathematical techniques and empirical knowledge they employ, along with comparative assessments of the performance of known economic systems and implemented designs, all of these form natural components of the subject matter of Economic Design. Officially cited as: Rev Econ Design