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Dorothea Kubler (WZB Social Science Center Berlin) – "How to Avoid Black Markets for Appointments With Online Booking Systems"

September 11, 2019 @ 12:15 am - 1:30 pm

CREST Microeconomics Seminar : 

Time: 12:15 pm – 1:30pm
Date: 11th Sep. 2019
Place: Room 3001.
Dorothea Kubler (WZB Social Science Center Berlin) “How to Avoid Black Markets for Appointments With Online Booking Systems” with Rustamdjan Hakimov, C.-Philipp Heller and Morimitsu Kurino
Abstract: “Allocating appointment slots is presented as a new application for market design. We
consider online booking systems that are commonly used by public authorities to allocate
appointments for driver’s licenses, visa interviews, passport renewals, etc. We document that
black markets for appointments have developed in many parts of the world. Scalpers book
the appointments that are offered for free and sell the slots to appointment seekers. We model
the existing first-come-first-served booking system and propose an alternative system. The
alternative system collects applications for slots for a certain time period and then randomly
allocates slots to applicants. We investigate the two systems under conditions of low and high
demand for slots. The theory predicts and lab experiments confirm that scalpers profitably
book and sell slots under the current system with high demand, but that they are not active
in the proposed new system under both demand conditions.”

Organizers:

Roxana Fernandez Machado (CREST), Marie Laure Allain (CREST), and Linda Schilling (CREST)
Sponsors:
CREST
Lunch registration:
food provided, no registration needed