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The modified Boston mechanism

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  • Dur, Umut Mert

Abstract

Many school districts in the U.S. assign students to schools via the Boston mechanism. The Boston mechanism is not strategy-proof, and it is easy to manipulate. We slightly modify the Boston mechanism and show that the modified version outperforms the Boston mechanism in terms of strategy-proofness. In particular, the Boston mechanism is manipulable whenever the modified version is, but the modified version is not necessarily manipulable whenever the Boston mechanism is. We define a weaker form of consistency and characterize the modified Boston mechanism by this weaker form and a new axiom called respect of priority of the top-ranking students.

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  • Dur, Umut Mert, 2019. "The modified Boston mechanism," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:matsoc:v:101:y:2019:i:c:p:31-40
    DOI: 10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2018.08.004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Akyol, Ethem, 2023. "Inefficiency of Random Serial Dictatorship under incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    3. Bonkoungou, Somouaoga & Nesterov, Alexander, 2023. "Incentives in matching markets: counting and comparing manipulating agents," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(3), July.
    4. Yuanju Fang, 2021. "School Choice in Guangzhou: Why High-Scoring Students Are Protected?," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-12, April.
    5. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tommy Andersson, 2022. "School Choice," NBER Working Papers 29822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Rasoul Ramezanian & Mehdi Feizi, 2021. "Ex-post favoring ranks: a fairness notion for the random assignment problem," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 25(3), pages 157-176, September.
    7. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Flip Klijn & Marc Vorsatz, 2023. "Constrained school choice: an experimental QRE analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 587-624, October.
    8. Decerf, Benoit & Van der Linden, Martin, 2021. "Manipulability in school choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    9. Jaramillo, Paula & Kayı, Çaǧatay & Klijn, Flip, 2021. "School choice: Nash implementation of stable matchings through rank-priority mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    10. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Madhav Raghavan, 2023. "Improving Transparency and Verifiability in School Admissions: Theory and Experiment," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 376, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Lomakin, Artemii & Minibaev, Kamil & Nesterov, Alexander, 2024. "Modifications of Boston, Taiwanese and Chinese mechanisms are not comparable via counting manipulating students," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    12. Mennle, Timo & Seuken, Sven, 2021. "Partial strategyproofness: Relaxing strategyproofness for the random assignment problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).

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