Mechanism Design meets Priority Design: Redesigning the US Army's Branching Process

TL;DR

This paper analyzes and redesigns the US Army's cadet branching process by integrating mechanism and priority design, leading to improved alignment with Army objectives and practical implementation at West Point and ROTC.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework linking Army objectives to allocation mechanisms and priority policies, resulting in a novel, unified design approach.

Findings

The Army's objectives uniquely determine the allocation mechanism.

The new mechanism aligns with Army goals and improves implementation.

The redesigned process is adopted at West Point and ROTC.

Abstract

Army cadets obtain occupations through a centralized process. Three objectives -- increasing retention, aligning talent, and enhancing trust -- have guided reforms to this process since 2006. West Point's mechanism for the Class of 2020 exacerbated challenges implementing Army policy aims. We formulate these desiderata as axioms and study their implications theoretically and with administrative data. We show that the Army's objectives not only determine an allocation mechanism, but also a specific priority policy, a uniqueness result that integrates mechanism and priority design. These results led to a re-design of the mechanism, now adopted at both West Point and ROTC.