The school elite: a game of rating (anti)monopoly

In this work, we present our point of view on the unification of schools in Moscow. We try to clarify why the association took place, what motives the Moscow Department of Education and the schools themselves could have, suggesting that their actions had a rational justification. At the same time, we assume that those schools that had greater bargaining power could choose how and with whom to unite. We also consider this from an educational point of view, using the example of the policy of enlargement of schools or monopolization, which was carried out during the 2010- 2019 in the city of Moscow. In the first stage of our research, we solve the problem of spatial monopoly. We model schools as producers of quality education and apply the L?schian model. As a result, we determine some parameters of the equilibrium of the system, such as the quality of education, access conditions, etc. At the second stage, an empirical analysis of the location of schools in the city space and the influence of their location on the popularity measured by the number of schoolchildren is carried out. We also investigate the impact of the availability of sections and the rating of the school on its attractiveness.