Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism

S-Tier
Journal: Journal of Political Economy
Year: 2013
Volume: 121
Issue: 1
Pages: 186 - 219

Authors (1)

Tayfun Sönmez (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

8.043 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Motivated by the low retention rates of US Military Academy and Reserve Officer Training Corps graduates, the Army recently introduced incentives programs in which cadets could bid 3 years of additional service obligation to obtain higher priority for their desired branches. The full potential of this incentives program is not utilized because of the ROTC's deficient matching mechanism. I propose a design that eliminates these shortcomings and mitigates several policy problems the Army has identified. In contrast to the ROTC mechanism, my design utilizes market principles more extensively, and it is a hybrid between a market mechanism and a priority-based allocation mechanism.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/669915
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-29