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How Lotteries in School Choice Help to Level the Playing Field

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Basteck
  • Bettina Klaus
  • Dorothea Kuebler

Abstract

School authorities in the UK and the US advocate the use of lotteries to help desegregate schools. Inspired by the current school choice mechanism in Berlin, we study lottery quotas embedded in the deferred acceptance (DA) and immediate acceptance (IA) mechanisms. Some seats are allocated based on academic achievement (e.g.,grades) and some based on a lottery. We focus on the e ect of the lottery quota on truth-telling, stability, the utility of students, and the student composition at schools, using theory and experiments. We find that in theory a lottery quota strengthens truth-telling in DA by eliminating non-truth-telling equilibria. The equilibrium outcome of DA with a lottery is stable while this is not the case for IA with a lottery. Both predictions are borne out in the experiment. Moreover,the lottery quota leads to more diverse school populations in the experiment, as predicted. Comparing the two mechanisms, students with the lowest grades profit more from the introduction of the lottery under IA than under DA.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Basteck & Bettina Klaus & Dorothea Kuebler, 2019. "How Lotteries in School Choice Help to Level the Playing Field," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 19.09, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    • Handle: RePEc:lau:crdeep:19.09
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    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bouacida, Elias & Foucart, Renaud, 2025. "Rituals of reason: Experimental evidence on the social acceptability of lotteries in allocation problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 23-36.
    3. Schmidt, Robert J. & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2019. "Implementing (Un)fair Procedures? Favoritism and Process Fairness when Inequality is Inevitable," Other publications TiSEM 125472e2-51a2-4cf9-aab5-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Ortega, Josué & Klein, Thilo, 2023. "The cost of strategy-proofness in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 515-528.
    5. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Experiments On Matching Markets: A Survey," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 153, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Zhiyi Xu & Robert G. Hammond, 2024. "Designing school choice mechanisms: A structural model and demand estimation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 505-524, April.
    7. Zhang, Jun, 2021. "Level-k reasoning in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-17.
    8. repec:awi:wpaper:661 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler & Siqi Pan, 2023. "Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1447-1490, November.
    10. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488.
    11. Mennle, Timo & Seuken, Sven, 2021. "Partial strategyproofness: Relaxing strategyproofness for the random assignment problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    12. Adam Kapor & Mohit Karnani & Christopher Neilson, 2019. "Negative Externalities of Off Platform Options and the Efficiency of Centralized Assignment Mechanisms," Working Papers 635, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. Elias Bouacida & Renaud Foucart, 2022. "Rituals of Reason," Working Papers 344119591, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.

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    Keywords

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    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
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

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