IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bge/wpaper/1119.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Improving Schools through School Choice: An Experimental Study of Deferred Acceptance

Author

Listed:
  • Flip Klijn
  • Joana Pais
  • Marc Vorsatz

Abstract

In the context of school choice, we experimentally study the student-optimal stable mechanism where subjects take the role of students and schools are passive. Specifically, we study if a school can be better off when it unambiguously improves in the students’ true preferences and its (theoretic) student-optimal stable match remains the same or gets worse. Using first-order stochastic dominance to evaluate the schools’ distributions over their actual matches, we find that schools’ welfare almost always changes in the same direction as the change of the student-optimal stable matching, i.e., incentives to improve school quality are nearly idle.

Suggested Citation

  • Flip Klijn & Joana Pais & Marc Vorsatz, 2019. "Improving Schools through School Choice: An Experimental Study of Deferred Acceptance," Working Papers 1119, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:1119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.barcelonagse.eu/sites/default/files/working_paper_pdfs/1119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pais, Joana & Pintér, Ágnes, 2008. "School choice and information: An experimental study on matching mechanisms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 303-328, September.
    2. Pablo Guillen & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2021. "Strategy-proofness in experimental matching markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 650-668, June.
    3. Gabrielle Fack & Julien Grenet & Yinghua He, 2019. "Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice and College Admissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1486-1529, April.
    4. Caterina Calsamiglia & Guillaume Haeringer & Flip Klijn, 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1860-1874, September.
    5. Gabrielle Fack & Julien Grenet & Yinghua He, 2019. "Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice and College Admissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1486-1529, April.
    6. Alvin Roth, 2008. "Deferred acceptance algorithms: history, theory, practice, and open questions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 537-569, March.
    7. repec:nas:journl:v:115:y:2018:p:11471-11476 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    9. Basteck, Christian & Mantovani, Marco, 2018. "Cognitive ability and games of school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 156-183.
    10. Flip Klijn & Joana Pais & Marc Vorsatz, 2013. "Preference intensities and risk aversion in school choice: a laboratory experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-22, March.
    11. Chen, Yan & Sonmez, Tayfun, 2006. "School choice: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 202-231, March.
    12. Alex Rees-Jones & Samuel Skowronek, 2018. "An Experimental Investigation of Preference Misrepresentation in the Residency Match," Papers 1802.01990, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2018.
    13. Li Chen & Juan Sebastian Pereyra Barreiro, 2015. "Self-Selection in School Choice," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-52, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Rees-Jones, Alex, 2018. "Suboptimal behavior in strategy-proof mechanisms: Evidence from the residency match," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 317-330.
    15. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    16. Hatfield, John William & Kojima, Fuhito & Narita, Yusuke, 2016. "Improving schools through school choice: A market design approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 186-211.
    17. Avinatan Hassidim & Assaf Romm & Ran I. Shorrer, 2016. ""Strategic" Behavior in a Strategy-Proof Environment," Working Paper 413411, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    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. Hoyer, B. & Stroh-Maraun, N., 2020. "Matching strategies of heterogeneous agents under incomplete information in a university clearinghouse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 453-481.
    2. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488, June.
    3. Zhang, Jun, 2021. "Level-k reasoning in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-17.
    4. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Experiments On Matching Markets: A Survey," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 153, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Avinatan Hassidim & Assaf Romm & Ran I. Shorrer, 2021. "The Limits of Incentives in Economic Matching Procedures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 951-963, February.
    6. Ran I. Shorrer & Sandor Sovago, 2017. "Obvious Mistakes in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-107/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Meisner, Vincent & von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2019. "School Choice and Loss Aversion," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 208, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    8. Klijn, Flip & Pais, Joana & Vorsatz, Marc, 2019. "Static versus dynamic deferred acceptance in school choice: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 147-163.
    9. Basteck, Christian & Klaus, Bettina & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "How lotteries in school choice help to level the playing field," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 198-237.
    10. Pablo Guillen & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2021. "Strategy-proofness in experimental matching markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 650-668, June.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Bnaya Dreyfuss & Ori Heffetz & Matthew Rabin, 2019. "Expectations-Based Loss Aversion May Help Explain Seemingly Dominated Choices in Strategy-Proof Mechanisms," NBER Working Papers 26394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Meisner, Vincent & von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2023. "Loss aversion in strategy-proof school-choice mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    15. Basteck, Christian & Mantovani, Marco, 2018. "Cognitive ability and games of school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 156-183.
    16. Li, Mengling, 2020. "Ties matter: Improving efficiency in course allocation by allowing ties," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 354-384.
    17. Yoan Hermstrüwer, 2019. "Transparency and Fairness in School Choice Mechanisms," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2019_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    18. Grenet, Julien & He, YingHua & Kübler, Dorothea, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 130(6), pages 1-1.
    19. Pablo Guillen & Rustamdjan Hakimov, 2017. "Not quite the best response: truth-telling, strategy-proof matching, and the manipulation of others," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 670-686, September.
    20. Afacan, Mustafa Oğuz & Evdokimov, Piotr & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Turhan, Bertan, 2022. "Parallel markets in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 181-201.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    school choice; matching; deferred acceptance; school quality; stability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    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:bge:wpaper:1119. 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: Bruno Guallar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bargses.html .

    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.