Design on Matroids: Diversity vs. Meritocracy
M. Bunmin Yenmez (Boston College)
Abstract (joint work with Isa Hafalir, Fuhito Kojima, and Koji Yokote):
We provide optimal solutions to an institution that has dual goals of diversity and meritocracy when choosing from a set of applications. For example, in college admissions, an administration may want to admit a diverse class in addition to choosing students with the highest qualifications. We provide a class of choice rules that maximize meritocracy subject to attaining a diversity level. Using this class, we find all subsets of applications on the diversity-meritocracy Pareto frontier. In addition, we provide two novel characterizations of matroids.