IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2609.39425.html

The Limits of Rank-Dependent Priorities in School Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Masato Eguchi

Abstract

Many school choice mechanisms give students higher priority at schools they rank highly and aim to reward students' eagerness. This paper studies whether a centralized mechanism can incorporate such rank-dependent priorities while preserving truthful reporting. I consider a mechanism that jointly specifies how reported preferences modify schools' original priorities and how assignments are determined based on the modified priorities. I require the modification rule to satisfy rank monotonicity and the resulting matching to be stable with respect to the modified priorities. These two requirements jointly capture the policy objective of rewarding eagerness. My main result shows that any mechanism satisfying these requirements as well as strategy-proofness is outcome equivalent to the student-proposing Deferred Acceptance mechanism using the original priorities. Thus, if eagerness affects the outcome while the rank-dependent policy goal is maintained, the mechanism must be manipulable.

Suggested Citation

  • Masato Eguchi, 2026. "The Limits of Rank-Dependent Priorities in School Choice," Papers 2609.39425, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2609.39425
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.39425
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roth, Alvin E, 1986. "On the Allocation of Residents to Rural Hospitals: A General Property of Two-Sided Matching Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 425-427, March.
    2. Thayer Morrill, 2013. "An alternative characterization of the deferred acceptance algorithm," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(1), pages 19-28, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Alva, Samson & Manjunath, Vikram, 2019. "Strategy-proof Pareto-improvement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 121-142.
    5. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    6. Umut Dur & Robert G. Hammond & Thayer Morrill, 2018. "Identifying the Harm of Manipulable School-Choice Mechanisms," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 187-213, February.
    7. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-Proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1954-1978, December.
    8. Ha, Wei & Kang, Le & Song, Yang, 2020. "College matching mechanisms and matching stability: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 206-226.
    9. Haluk I. Ergin, 2002. "Efficient Resource Allocation on the Basis of Priorities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2489-2497, November.
    10. Balinski, Michel & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "A Tale of Two Mechanisms: Student Placement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 73-94, January.
    11. Troyan, Peter, 2012. "Comparing school choice mechanisms by interim and ex-ante welfare," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 936-947.
    12. Onur Kesten, 2010. "School Choice with Consent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1297-1348.
    13. Bo, Shiyu & Liu, Jing & Shiu, Ji-Liang & Song, Yan & Zhou, Sen, 2019. "Admission mechanisms and the mismatch between colleges and students: Evidence from a large administrative dataset from China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 27-37.
    14. Ergin, Haluk & Sonmez, Tayfun, 2006. "Games of school choice under the Boston mechanism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 215-237, January.
    15. Cao, Yuan, 2020. "Centralized assignment mechanisms and assortative matching: Evidence from Chinese universities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 255-276.
    16. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the New York City High School Match," NBER Working Papers 14864, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Fuhito Kojima & Mihai Manea, 2010. "Axioms for Deferred Acceptance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 633-653, March.
    18. Yan Chen & Onur Kesten, 2017. "Chinese College Admissions and School Choice Reforms: A Theoretical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 99-139.
    19. Umut Dur & Parag A. Pathak & Fei Song & Tayfun Sönmez, 2022. "Deduction Dilemmas: The Taiwan Assignment Mechanism," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 164-185, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ayoade, Nickesha & Pápai, Szilvia, 2023. "School choice with preference rank classes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 317-341.
    2. Dur, Umut & Hammond, Robert G. & Kesten, Onur, 2021. "Sequential school choice: Theory and evidence from the field and lab," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    3. Harless, Patrick, 2014. "A School Choice Compromise: Between Immediate and Deferred Acceptance," MPRA Paper 61417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Kesten, Onur & Kurino, Morimitsu, 2019. "Strategy-proof improvements upon deferred acceptance: A maximal domain for possibility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 120-143.
    5. Fuhito Kojima & M. Ünver, 2014. "The “Boston” school-choice mechanism: an axiomatic approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 515-544, April.
    6. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tommy Andersson, 2022. "School Choice," NBER Working Papers 29822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Benoit Decerf, 2023. "A modification aimed at reducing the manipulability and inefficiency of the Boston school choice mechanism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(1), pages 75-101, January.
    8. Troyan, Peter & Delacrétaz, David & Kloosterman, Andrew, 2020. "Essentially stable matchings," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 370-390.
    9. Wu, Binzhen & Zhong, Xiaohan, 2020. "Matching inequality and strategic behavior under the Boston mechanism: Evidence from China's college admissions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-21.
    10. Mustafa Og̃uz Afacan & Zeynel Harun Aliog̃ulları & Mehmet Barlo, 2017. "Sticky matching in school choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(3), pages 509-538, October.
    11. Li Chen, 2023. "Timing of preference submissions under the Boston mechanism," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(4), pages 803-820, August.
    12. Troyan, Peter & Morrill, Thayer, 2020. "Obvious manipulations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    13. Lars Ehlers & Bettina Klaus, 2014. "Strategy-Proofness Makes the Difference: Deferred-Acceptance with Responsive Priorities," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 949-966, November.
    14. Hayri Alper Arslan & Yang Song & Tong Wang, 2024. "Preference submission timing and college admission outcomes: evidence from Turkey," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 28(1), pages 189-241, February.
    15. Afacan, Mustafa Og̃uz & Dur, Umut Mert, 2017. "When preference misreporting is Harm[less]ful?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 16-24.
    16. Onur Kesten, 2012. "On two kinds of manipulation for school choice problems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 677-693, November.
    17. Han, Xiang, 2024. "On the efficiency and fairness of deferred acceptance with single tie-breaking," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    18. Kojima, Fuhito, 2013. "Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-14.
    19. Morrill, Thayer, 2015. "Making just school assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 18-27.
    20. Chen, Yan & Kesten, Onur, 2019. "Chinese college admissions and school choice reforms: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 83-100.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2609.39425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.