2024/11/14 by Terence Highsmith, Highsmith, Terence
Social Sciences · #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.09817
Caseworkers in foster care systems match waiting children to adoptive homes. We use dynamic matching market design to characterize a class of mechanisms that incentivize expedient matches that homes can accept or decline. We design mechanisms satisfying fairness and limited strategy-proofness. They also avoid costly patience. Our empirically-based simulations suggest the mechanisms could increase adoptions by at least 25% versus the status quo. A naive dynamic extension of Deferred Acceptance does not attain these benefits. Our mechanisms sidestep direct preference elicitation by predicting preferences, and they are robust to prediction error.