IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/20032.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What happens when separate and unequal school districts merge?

Author

Listed:
  • Aue, Robert
  • Klein, Thilo
  • Ortega, Josué

Abstract

We study the welfare effects of school district consolidation, i.e. the integration of disjoint school districts into a centralised clearinghouse. We show theoretically that, in the worst-case scenario, district consolidation may unambiguously reduce students' welfare, even if the student-optimal stable matching is consistently chosen. However, on average all students experience expected welfare gains from district consolidation, particularly those who belong to smaller and over-demanded districts. Using data from the Hungarian secondary school assignment mechanism, we compute the actual welfare gains from district consolidation in Budapest and compare these to our theoretical predictions. We empirically document substantial welfare gains from district consolidation for students, equivalent to attending a school five kilometres closer to the students' home addresses. As an important building block of our empirical strategy, we describe a method to consistently estimate students' preferences over schools and vice versa that does not fully assume that students report their preferences truthfully in the student-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm.

Suggested Citation

  • Aue, Robert & Klein, Thilo & Ortega, Josué, 2020. "What happens when separate and unequal school districts merge?," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/222285/1/1724285688.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justine S. Hastings & Christopher A. Neilson & Seth D. Zimmerman, 2013. "Are Some Degrees Worth More than Others? Evidence from college admission cutoffs in Chile," NBER Working Papers 19241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Yeon-Koo Che & Olivier Tercieux, 2019. "Efficiency and Stability in Large Matching Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2301-2342.
    3. Braun Sebastian & Dwenger Nadja & Kübler Dorothea, 2010. "Telling the Truth May Not Pay Off: An Empirical Study of Centralized University Admissions in Germany," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, March.
    4. 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.
    5. van Buuren, Stef & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, Karin, 2011. "mice: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i03).
    6. Hector Chade & Gregory Lewis & Lones Smith, 2014. "Student Portfolios and the College Admissions Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 971-1002.
    7. Hafalir, Isa E. & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea & Kurino, Morimitsu, 2018. "College admissions with entrance exams: Centralized versus decentralized," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 886-934.
    8. YingHua He & Thierry Magnac, 2022. "Application Costs and Congestion in Matching Markets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2918-2950.
    9. Manjunath, Vikram & Turhan, Bertan, 2016. "Two school systems, one district: What to do when a unified admissions process is impossible," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 25-40.
    10. Hafalir, Isa E. & Kojima, Fuhito & Yenmez, M. Bumin, 2022. "Interdistrict school choice: A theory of student assignment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Leach, John & Payne, A. Abigail & Chan, Steve, 2010. "The effects of school board consolidation and financing on student performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1034-1046, December.
    13. Martin Söderström & Roope Uusitalo, 2010. "School Choice and Segregation: Evidence from an Admission Reform," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(1), pages 55-76, March.
    14. Nikhil Agarwal, 2015. "An Empirical Model of the Medical Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 1939-1978, July.
    15. Ortega, Josué, 2018. "Social integration in two-sided matching markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 119-126.
    16. Rajnish Kunar & Kriti Manocha & Josue Ortega, 2020. "On the integration of Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Papers 2004.09075, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    17. Simon Burgess & Ellen Greaves & Anna Vignoles & Deborah Wilson, 2015. "What Parents Want: School Preferences and School Choice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1262-1289, September.
    18. Surender Baswana & Partha Pratim Chakrabarti & Sharat Chandran & Yashodhan Kanoria & Utkarsh Patange, 2019. "Centralized Admissions for Engineering Colleges in India," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 49(5), pages 338-354, September.
    19. Li Chen & Juan Sebastian Pereyra Barreiro, 2015. "Self-Selection in School Choice," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-52, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    20. Sprumont, Yves, 1990. "Population monotonic allocation schemes for cooperative games with transferable utility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 378-394, December.
    21. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521747387, September.
    22. Elie Tamer, 2003. "Incomplete Simultaneous Discrete Response Model with Multiple Equilibria," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 147-165.
    23. Duncombe, William & Miner, Jerry & Ruggiero, John, 1995. "Potential cost savings from school district consolidation: A case study of New York," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 265-284, September.
    24. Itai Ashlagi & Yash Kanoria & Jacob D. Leshno, 2017. "Unbalanced Random Matching Markets: The Stark Effect of Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 69-98.
    25. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    26. Castillo, Marco & Dianat, Ahrash, 2016. "Truncation strategies in two-sided matching markets: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 180-196.
    27. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Yenmez, M. Bumin, 2019. "Common enrollment in school choice," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), November.
    28. Machado, Cecilia & Szerman, Christiane, 2016. "Centralized Admission and the Student-College Match," IZA Discussion Papers 10251, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    29. Haeringer, Guillaume & Klijn, Flip, 2009. "Constrained school choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 1921-1947, September.
    30. Akyol, Pelin & Krishna, Kala, 2017. "Preferences, selection, and value added: A structural approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 89-117.
    31. Yeon-Koo Che & Youngwoo Koh, 2016. "Decentralized College Admissions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1295-1338.
    32. Chen, Li & Sebastián Pereyra, Juan, 2019. "Self-selection in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 59-81.
    33. Turhan, Bertan, 2019. "Welfare and incentives in partitioned school choice markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 199-208.
    34. Brasington, David M., 1999. "Joint provision of public goods: the consolidation of school districts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 373-393, September.
    35. Gabor Kertesi & Gabor Kezdi, 2013. "School segregation, school choice and educational policies in 100 Hungarian towns," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1312, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    36. Nikhil Agarwal & William Diamond, 2013. "Identification and Estimation in Two-Sided Matching Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1905, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Feb 2014.
    37. Gordon, Nora & Knight, Brian, 2009. "A spatial merger estimator with an application to school district consolidation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 752-765, June.
    38. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    39. Eduardo M. Azevedo & Jacob D. Leshno, 2016. "A Supply and Demand Framework for Two-Sided Matching Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1235-1268.
    40. repec:cte:werepe:we015919 is not listed on IDEAS
    41. Beggs, S. & Cardell, S. & Hausman, J., 1981. "Assessing the potential demand for electric cars," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-19, September.
    42. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Nikhil Agarwal & Parag A. Pathak, 2017. "The Welfare Effects of Coordinated Assignment: Evidence from the New York City High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3635-3689, December.
    43. Logan, John Allen & Hoff, Peter D. & Newton, Michael A., 2008. "Two-Sided Estimation of Mate Preferences for Similarities in Age, Education, and Religion," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103, pages 559-569, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ortega, Josué & Klein, Thilo, 2023. "The cost of strategy-proofness in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 515-528.
    2. Ortega, Josue & Klein, Thilo, 2022. "Improving efficiency and equality in school choice," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-046, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Schwartz, Jacob & Song, Kyungchul, 2024. "The law of large numbers for large stable matchings," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 241(1).
    4. Kondratev, Aleksei Y. & Nesterov, Alexander S., 2022. "Minimal envy and popular matchings," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 296(3), pages 776-787.
    5. Adam Kapor & Mohit Karnani & Christopher Neilson, 2024. "Aftermarket Frictions and the Cost of Off-Platform Options in Centralized Assignment Mechanisms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(7), pages 2346-2395.
    6. Aue, Robert & Bach, Maximilian & Heigle, Julia & Klein, Thilo & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm & Zapp, Kristina, 2020. "The implication of school admission rules for segregation and educational inequality: Research report," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 223254.
    7. Nick Arnosti, 2023. "Lottery Design for School Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 244-259, January.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Haller, Hans, 2022. "Gainers and losers from market integration," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 32-39.
    9. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Rajnish Kunar & Kriti Manocha & Josue Ortega, 2020. "On the integration of Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Papers 2004.09075, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    11. YingHua He & Shruti Sinha & Xiaoting Sun, 2021. "Identification and Estimation in Many-to-one Two-sided Matching without Transfers," Papers 2104.02009, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    12. Christopher Neilson & Adam Kapor & Mohit Karnani, 2020. "Aftermarket Frictions and the Cost of Off-Platform Options in Centralized Assignment Mechanisms," Working Papers 635a, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. Kumar, Rajnish & Manocha, Kriti & Ortega, Josué, 2022. "On the integration of Shapley–Scarf markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).

    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. Thilo Klein & Robert Aue & Josue Ortega, 2020. "School choice with independent versus consolidated districts," Papers 2006.13209, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    2. Aue, Robert & Bach, Maximilian & Heigle, Julia & Klein, Thilo & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm & Zapp, Kristina, 2020. "The implication of school admission rules for segregation and educational inequality: Research report," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 223254.
    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. Hayri A. Arslan, 2021. "Preference estimation in centralized college admissions from reported lists," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2865-2911, November.
    5. YingHua He & Thierry Magnac, 2022. "Application Costs and Congestion in Matching Markets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2918-2950.
    6. He, Yinghua & Magnac, Thierry, 2018. "A Pigouvian Approach to Congestion in Matching Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 11967, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Georgy Artemov & Yeon-Koo Che & YingHua He, 2023. "Stable Matching with Mistaken Agents," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 270-320.
    9. Abdulkadiroglu, Atila & Andersson, Tommy, 2022. "School Choice," Working Papers 2022:4, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    10. Tong Wang & Congyi Zhou, 2020. "High school admission reform in China: a welfare analysis," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 24(3), pages 215-269, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Thierry Magnac, 2018. "Quels étudiants pour quelles universités ? Analyses empiriques de mécanismes d’allocation centralisée," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 69(5), pages 683-708.
    13. Machado, Cecilia & Szerman, Christiane, 2021. "Centralized college admissions and student composition," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    14. Tommy Andersson & Umut Dur & Sinan Ertemel & Onur Kesten, 2024. "Sequential school choice with public and private schools," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(2), pages 231-276, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Schwartz, Jacob & Song, Kyungchul, 2024. "The law of large numbers for large stable matchings," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 241(1).
    17. 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.
    18. Rajnish Kunar & Kriti Manocha & Josue Ortega, 2020. "On the integration of Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Papers 2004.09075, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    19. YingHua He & Shruti Sinha & Xiaoting Sun, 2021. "Identification and Estimation in Many-to-one Two-sided Matching without Transfers," Papers 2104.02009, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    20. Estelle Cantillon & Li Chen & Juan Sebastian Pereyra Barreiro, 2022. "Respecting priorities versus respecting preferences in school choice: When is there a trade-off ?," Working Papers ECARES 2022-39, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    school district consolidation; integration of matching markets; preference estimation without truth-telling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    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:zbw:zewdip:20032. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.