An Experimental Evaluation of Deferred Acceptance: Evidence From Over 100 Army Officer Labor Markets
Econometrica · 2026 · Jonathan M.V. Davis、Kyle Greenberg、Damon Jones
中文摘要
内部劳动力市场在组织内部实现劳动者与岗位匹配方面日益重要。我们提供了一项随机试验的证据，该试验比较了使用延迟接受（DA）算法与传统的管理者主导匹配流程来匹配劳动者与岗位的效果。我们的研究场景是美国陆军的内部劳动力市场，该市场每年将超过14,000名军官匹配至各单位。我们发现，DA减轻了行政负担并提高了匹配质量，具体表现为有正当理由的嫉妒减少、真实偏好报告增加，以及军官和单位对其匹配结果的偏好改善。在军官开始新工作后的两年内，DA对军官留任和绩效的总体影响，受到军官与单位之间策略性偏好协调的限制。然而，在管理者经验不足的市场中，DA显著改善了军官的留任率和晋升率。我们的研究结果表明，内部劳动力市场中主体之间的跨市场沟通可能会削弱防策略匹配算法的收益。
Abstract
Internal labor markets are increasingly important for matching workers to jobs within organizations. We present evidence from a randomized trial that compares matching workers to jobs using the deferred acceptance (DA) algorithm to the traditional manager‐directed matching process. Our setting is the U.S. Army's internal labor market, which matches over 14,000 officers to units annually. We find that DA reduces administrative burden and increases match quality as measured by reduced justified envy, increased truthful preference reporting, and officers' and units' preferences over their matches. The overall impact of DA on officer retention and performance in the two years after officers started their new jobs is limited by strategic preference coordination between officers and units. However, DA leads to significant improvements in officer retention and promotions in markets with inexperienced managers. Our findings suggest that cross‐market communication between agents in internal labor markets can attenuate the benefits of strategyproof matching algorithms.