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Sorting in public school districts under the Boston Mechanism

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  • Caterina Calsamiglia
  • Francisco Martinez-Mora
  • Antonio Miralles

Abstract

We show that the widely used Boston Mechanism (BM) fosters ability and socioeconomic segregation across otherwise identical public schools, even when schools do not have priorities over local students. Our model includes an endogenous component of school quality - determined by the peer group - and an exogenous one. If there is an exogenously worse public school, BM generates sorting of types between a priori equally good public schools: an elitist public school emerges. A richer model with some preference for closer schools and flexible residential choice does not eliminate this effect. It rather worsens the peer quality of the nonelitist school. The existence of private schools makes the best public school more elitist, while reducing the peer quality of the worst school. The main alternative assignment mechanism, Deferred Acceptance, is resilient to such sorting effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martinez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2017. "Sorting in public school districts under the Boston Mechanism," Discussion Papers in Economics 17/10, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    • Handle: RePEc:lec:leecon:17/10
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    File URL: https://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/RePEc/lec/leecon/dp17-10.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Gortázar, Lucas & Mayor, David & Montalbán, José, 2020. "School Choice Priorities and School Segregation: Evidence from Madrid," Working Paper Series 1/2020, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research, revised 20 May 2020.
    2. Estelle Cantillon, 2017. "Broadening the market design approach to school choice," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 613-634.
    3. Christian Basteck & Marco Mantovani, 2023. "Aiding applicants: leveling the playing field within the immediate acceptance mechanism," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(1), pages 187-220, February.
    4. Akbarpour, Mohammad & Kapor, Adam & Neilson, Christopher & van Dijk, Winnie & Zimmerman, Seth, 2022. "Centralized School choice with unequal outside options," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    5. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martinez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2020. "Cardinal Assignment Mechanisms: Money Matters More than it Should," Working Papers 1150, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. van der Klaauw, Bas & Oosterbeek, Hessel & Sóvágó, Sándor, 2019. "Why are schools segregated? Evidence from the secondary-school match in Amsterdam," CEPR Discussion Papers 13462, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School choice; mechanism design; peer effects; local public goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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