Optimal Rationing within a Heterogeneous Population

Journal article: A government agency delegates to a provider (hospital, medical gatekeeper, school, social worker) the decision to supply a service or treatment to individual recipients. The agency does not perfectly know the distribution of individual treatment costs in the population. The single-crossing property is not satisfied when the uncertainty pertains to the dispersion of the distribution. We find that the provision of service should be distorted upwards when the first-best efficient number of recipients is sufficiently high.

Author(s)

Philippe Choné, Stéphane Gauthier

Journal
  • Journal of Public Economic Theory
Date of publication
  • 2017
Keywords JEL
D61 D82 I18
Keywords
  • Provision of service
  • Service
  • Treatment
  • Provision of service
Pages
  • 732-738
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 19