Merit and Job Allocation *

We use theory and experiments to investigate whether social planners incorporate merit-based principles when assigning jobs among workers. The merit-based principles we consider reflect the view that more productive workers should be assigned their preferred job or granted opportunities to earn higher income than less productive workers. However, adherence to merit-based principles may conflict with other distributional objectives, such as minimizing income inequality or maximizing efficiency. Our analysis investigates how social planners balance merit, inequality, and efficiency concerns in job assignment problems.