Before revision: Consider a situation wherein a stream of individuals arrive sequentially - for example when they get unemployed - to a social planner. Once each individual arrives, the planner needs to decide instantaneously on an action or treatment assignment - for example offering job training - while taking into account various institutional constraints such as limited budget and capacity.
After revision: Devising guidance on how to assign individuals to treatment is an important goal of empirical research. In practice individuals often arrive sequentially, and the planner faces various constraints such as limited budget and capacity.