Design on Matroids: Diversity vs. Meritocracy

Authors: Isa Hafalir, Fuhito Kojima, M. Bumin Yenmez, Koji Yokote

Date of publication: October 2022

Working paper number: 04

Abstract:

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, administrators may want to admit a diverse class in addition to choosing students with the highest qualifications. We provide a family of choice rules that maximize merit subject to attaining a diversity level. We study the desirable properties of choice rules in this family and use them to find all subsets of applications on the diversity-merit Pareto frontier. In addition, we provide two novel characterizations of matroids.

Keywords: Diversity, meritocracy, college admissions, matroids, ordinal concavity

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.