Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism

Tayfun Sönmez

Journal of Political Economy, 2013, vol. 121, issue 1, 186 - 219

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.

Date: 2013
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Working Paper: Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism (2011)
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