School choice: an experimental study

Chen, Yan; Sönmez, Tayfun

doi:10.1016/j.jet.2004.10.006

Cited by 310 publications

(263 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…To this end, market designers have advocated the use of strategy-proof mechanisms, which guarantees that students can do no better than submitting preferences truthfully (Roth (2008)). However, non-truthful behaviors are not only possible in theory, as truth-telling is a weakly dominant strategy, but also well documented in lab (Chen and Sönmez (2006) and Pais and Pintér (2008)). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Selection in School Choice

Chen

Pereyra

2016

SSRN Journal

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Abstract. We study self-selection in centralized school choice, a strategic behavior that takes place when students submit preferences before knowing their priorities at schools. A student selfselects if she decides not to apply to some schools despite being desirable. We give a theoretical explanation for this behavior: if a student believes her chances of being assigned to some schools are zero, she may not rank them even when the mechanism is strategy-proof. Using data from Mexico City high school match, we find evidence that self-selection exists, and has negative consequences for low income students as a result of their strategic mistakes.December, 2015

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Selection in School Choice

Chen

Pereyra

2016

SSRN Journal

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“…Anecdotal evidence from Boston (Pathak and Sonmez, 2008) and laboratory experiments (Chen and Sonmez, 2006;Calsamiglia et al, 2010) suggest that strategic behavior may be widespread in manipulable school choice systems. Indeed, our analysis of ranking behavior for admissions into public elementary schools in Cambridge indicates significant gaming.…”

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confidence: 99%

Demand Analysis using Strategic Reports: An application to a school choice mechanism

Agarwal

Somaini

2014

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Several school districts use assignment systems that give students an incentive to misrepresent their preferences. We find evidence consistent with strategic behavior in Cambridge. Such strategizing can complicate preference analysis. This paper develops empirical methods for studying random utility models in a new and large class of school choice mechanisms. We show that preferences are non-parametrically identified under either sufficient variation in choice environments or a preference shifter. We then develop a tractable estimation procedure and apply it to Cambridge. Estimates suggest that while 82% of students are assigned to their stated first choice, only 72% are assigned to their true first choice because students avoid ranking competitive schools. Assuming that students behave optimally, the Immediate Acceptance mechanism is preferred by the average student to the Deferred Acceptance mechanism by an equivalent of 0.08 miles. The estimated difference is smaller if beliefs are biased, and reversed if students report truthfully.

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“…Pathak and Sönmez (2008) show that when some students are naive in the sense that they always submit preferences truthfully, equilibrium outcomes of the Boston mechanism coincide with the set of matchings that are stable for a modified economy in which naive students lose their priorities to students who behave strategically. Chen and Sönmez (2006) and Abdulkadiroglu et al (2006) provide experimental and empirical evidence that students or their parents try to manipulate the Boston mechanism and that strategic behavior can lead to welfare losses. A more positive perspective on the Boston mechanism is provided by Abdulkadiroglu et al (2011b) who show that when schools have no priorities and all students have the same ordinal preferences but differ in their (privately known) preference intensities, any symmetric Bayes-Nash equilibrium of the Boston mechanism weakly ex-ante Pareto dominates the SDA mechanism with any symmetric tie-breaking rule.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This essentially assumes that universities do not act strategically. 10 While this assumption is certainly not without loss of generality, the majority of universities rely on objective evaluation procedures. For example, in the assignment procedure for places in Pharmacy, only 2 out of 22 universities chose to employ any subjective criteria for the winter term 2010/2011 (see Section ??…”

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An analysis of the German university admissions system

Westkamp

2012

Econ Theory

116

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE)is gratefully acknowledged.Deutsche Post World Net is a sponsor of the BGSE.An analysis of the German university admissions system * Alexander WestkampChair of Economic Theory II, Economics Department, University of Bonn; e-mail: awest@uni-bonn.de. AbstractThis paper analyzes the sequential admissions procedure for medical subjects at public universities in Germany. Complete information equilibrium outcomes are shown to be characterized by a stability condition that is adapted to the institutional constraints of the German system.I introduce matching problems with complex constraints and the notion of procedural stability. Two simple assumptions guarantee existence of a student optimal procedurally stable matching mechanism that is strategyproof for students. In the context of the German admissions problem, this mechanism weakly Pareto dominates all equilibrium outcomes of the currently employed procedure. Applications to school choice with affirmative action are also discussed.

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School choice: an experimental study

Cited by 310 publications

References 25 publications

Self-Selection in School Choice

Self-Selection in School Choice

Demand Analysis using Strategic Reports: An application to a school choice mechanism

An analysis of the German university admissions system

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