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Preference Intensities and Risk Aversion in School Choice: A Laboratory Experiment

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  • Flip Klijn

    () (Harvard Business School)

  • Joana Pais

    () (Technical University of Lisbon, UECE–Research Unit on Complexity and Economics)

  • Marc Vorsatz

    () (Fundacion de Estudios de Economia Aplicada (FEDEA))

Abstract

We experimentally investigate in the laboratory two prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools. We study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show that (a) the Gale-Shapley mechanism is more robust to changes in cardinal preferences than the Boston mechanism independently of whether individuals can submit a complete or only a restricted ranking of the schools and (b) subjects with a higher degree of risk aversion are more likely to play "safer" strategies under the Gale-Shapley but not under the Boston mechanism. Both results have important implications for the efficiency and the stability of the mechanisms.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Harvard Business School in its series Harvard Business School Working Papers with number 10-093.

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Length: 43 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-093

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Related research

Keywords: school choice; risk aversion; preference intensities; laboratory experiment; Gale-Shapley mechanism; Boston mechanism; efficiency; stability; constrained choice;

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  1. Joana Pais & Agnes Pinter, 2007. "School Choice and Information. An Experimental Study on Matching Mechanisms," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 018, University of Siena.
  2. Guillaume Haeringer & Caterina Calsamiglia & Flip Klijn, 2009. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study," Working Papers 2009.29, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  3. repec:bla:restud:v:76:y:2009:i:1:p:181-221 is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
  5. Haeringer, Guillaume & Klijn, Flip, 2009. "Constrained school choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 1921-1947, September.
  6. Barberà, S. & Dutta, B., 1995. "Protective behavior in matching models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 281-296.
  7. Yan Chen & Tayfun Sönmez, 2004. "School Choice: An Experimental Study," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 622, Boston College Department of Economics.
  8. Barbera, Salvador & Dutta, Bhaskar, 1982. "Implementability via protective equilibria," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 49-65, June.
  9. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Yeon-Koo Che & Yosuke Yasuda, 2011. "Resolving Conflicting Preferences in School Choice: The "Boston Mechanism" Reconsidered," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 399-410, February.
  10. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun S�nmez, 2005. "The Boston Public School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 368-371, May.
  11. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
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