• AEA
  • About the AEA
  • Committees
  • Honors & Awards
  • For Graduate Students
  • For Undergrad Students
  • News & Notes
  • Officers
  • General Information
  • Minutes
  • UA Questionnaire
  • Continuing Education
  • Directory of Members
  • Call for Papers
  • Media
• Journals
  • AEJ: Applied Economics
  • AEJ: Economic Policy
  • AEJ: Macroeconomics
  • AEJ: Microeconomics
  • American Economic Review
  • Journal of Economic Literature
  • Journal of Economic Perspectives
  • eTOCs
  • Virtual Field Journals
  • Institutional Subscriptions
  • AEA Journals on JSTOR
  • Ads in Journals
  • Back Issues Order Forms
  • Copyright & Permissions
• Annual Meeting
  • Submissions
  • Registration/Housing
  • Preliminary Program
  • ASSA 2013 App
  • Annual Meeting Papers
  • Annual Meeting Webcasts
  • Disclosure Code Information
  • Exhibitors
  • Exhibitors & Advertisers Forms
  • Special Event Form
  • Continuing Education
  • Econ-Harmony
  • Archive of Past Programs
• EconLit
  • EconLit Access
  • EconLit Deskop Link
  • EconLit for Members
  • JEL Codes Guide
  • JEL Classifications
  • Journal List
  • Contacts/Corrections
  • Upcoming Exhibits
  • Document Types
  • Search Hints
• Jobs
  • JOE Listings
  • Submit a JOE Listing
  • Job Market Signaling
  • Job Market Scramble
  • Available Retired Faculty
• Resources
  • Resources For Economists
  • RFE Abridged Contents
  • RFE Search
  • RFE Conferences
  • Econ Search Engine
• Members
  • Member Login
  • Become a Member
  • Directory of Members
  • EconLit for Members
  • AEA Journals on JSTOR
  • Econ-Harmony
  • Annual Meeting Webcasts
  • Browse JEL Indexes
  • Virtual Field Journals
  • Institutional Subscriptions

View Settings

This setting lets you change the way you view articles. You can choose to have articles open in a dialog window, a new tab, or directly in the same window.

Open in Dialog
Open in New Tab
Open in same window

Journal of Economic Perspectives: Vol. 3 No. 3 (Summer 1989)

JEP Volume. 3, Issue 3 | Previous ArticleNext Article

Expand

Quick Tools:

Print Article Summary Email Link to this Article

To Email:

From Email:

Message:

Email Link to Article Change Captcha Export Citation

BibTeX EndNote Refer/BibIX RIS Tab-Delimited Export Sign up for Email Alerts Follow us on Twitter

Explore:

JEP - All Issues

Auctions as an Allocation Mechanism in Academia: The Case of Faculty Offices

Article Citation

Boyes, William J., and Stephen K. Happel. 1989. "Auctions as an Allocation Mechanism in Academia: The Case of Faculty Offices." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 3(3): 37-40.

DOI: 10.1257/jep.3.3.37

Abstract

A six-story addition to Arizona State University's College of Business was completed in 1983, causing entire departments to be uprooted and relocated. Faculty offices had to be reassigned as a result. What seemed to be a trivial problem, the allocation of offices, turned out to be a very complex one. This is the story of how that problem was resolved. The chairman of the Economics Department decided to rely on an auction as the allocation mechanism. The experiment was a raging success until the story was picked up by the school newspaper, the Phoenix media, and then by media elsewhere. The university administration was not able to deflect the allegation that public property had been sold. It was due only to the fact that the money collected had gone into a scholarship fund that the controversy eventually dissipated without serious recriminations. Since the initial reallocation in 1983, the negative aspects of the experiment have virtually disappeared and even the central administration now appears to think it novel and interesting.

Article Full-Text Access

Full-text Article (Complimentary)

Authors

Boyes, William J. (AZ State U)
Happel, Stephen K. (AZ State U)

JEL Classifications

022: Microeconomics--Theory of Auction Markets
512: Managerial Economics

Comments

View Comments on This Article (0) | Login to post a comment