Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-9k27k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-17T07:35:22.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Market-Based Mechanism for Allocating Space Shuttle Secondary Payload Priority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

John Ledyard ,
David Porter  and
Randii Wessen
John Ledyard
Affiliation:
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 9H25
David Porter
Affiliation:
Economic Science Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Randii Wessen
Affiliation:
Systems Division, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This is an investigation into the design of a market-based process to replace NASA's current committee process for allocating Shuttle secondary payload resources (lockers, Watts and crew). The market-based process allocates budgets of tokens to NASA internal organizations that in turn use the budget to bid for priority for their middeck payloads. The scheduling algorithm selects payloads by priority class and maximizes the number of tokens bid to determine a manifest. The results of a number of controlled experiments show that such a system tends to allocate resources more efficiently by guiding participants to make resource and payload tradeoffs. Most participants were able to improve their position over NASA's current ranking system. Furthermore, those that are better off make large improvements while the few that do worse have relatively small losses.

Keywords

mechanism designauctionsscheduling

JEL classification

C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , March 2000 , pp. 173 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banks, J., Ledyard, J., and Porter, D. (1989). “Allocating Uncertain and Unresponsive Resources: An Experimental Approach.” Rand Journal of Economics. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clearwater, S., Costanza, R., and Schroeder, B. (1995). “Commodity Thermal Markets in Building Energy Management.” Energy Engineering. 92(3), 6–22.Google Scholar
Kagel, J. and Roth, A. (1995). The Handbook of Experimental Economics. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, J. (1993). “The Design of Coordination Mechanisms and Organizational Computing.” Journal of Organizational Computing. 1, 121–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, J., Rangel, A., and Porter, D. (1994). “Using Computerized Exchange Systems to Solve An Allocation Problem in Project Management.” Journal of Organizational Computing. 4(3), 271–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAfee, P. and McMillian, J. (1996). “Analyzing the Airwaves Auction.” Journal of Economic Perspectives. 10, 159–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milgrom, P. (1998). Auction Theory for Privatization. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1993). “Dominant and Nash Strategy Mechanisms with Transfers in the Assignment Problem.” TRACE Discussion Paper 93-17, Tinbergan Institute, Amsterdam-Rotterdam.Google Scholar
Plott, C. (1989). “An Updated Review of Industrial Organization: Applications of Experimental Economics.” In Schmalensee, R. and Willig, R. (eds.), Handbook of Industrial Organization.Google Scholar
Plott, C. (1994). “Market Architectures, Institutional Landscapes and Testbed Experiments.” Economic Theory. 4(1), 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rassenti, S., Smith, V., and Bulfin, R. (1982). “A Combinatorial Mechanism for Airport Time Slot Allocation.”. Bell Journal of Economics. 13, 402–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, V. (1982). “Microeconomic Systems as An Experimental Science.” American Economic Review. 72, 923–955.Google Scholar
Wessen, R. and Porter, D. (1997). “A Management Approach for Allocating Instrument Development Resources.” Space Policy. 13(3), 191–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wohl, A. (1997). “The Feasibility of An Index-Contingent Trading Mechanism.” Management Science. 43(1), 112–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar