Natalie Cox
ABSTRACT
Can a school-choice clearinghouse generate a stable matching if it does not allow students to express preferences over peers? Theoretically, we show stable matchings exist with peer preferences under mild conditions but finding one via canonical mechanisms is unlikely. Increasing transparency about the previous cohort's matching induces a tâtonnement process wherein prior matchings function as prices. We develop a test for stability and implement it empirically in the college admissions market in New South Wales, Australia. We find evidence of preferences over relative peer ability, but no convergence to stability. We propose a mechanism improving upon the current assignment process.
Link to full version of paper: https://tinyurl.com/25kdz22e
Index Terms
- Do Peer Preferences Matter in School Choice Market Design?: Theory and Evidence
Recommendations
First-Choice Maximal and First-Choice Stable School Choice Mechanisms
EC '18: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Economics and ComputationWe investigate the class of school choice mechanisms that are first-choice maximal (FCM) (i.e., they match a maximal number of students to their reported first choices) and first-choice stable (FCS) (i.e., no students form blocking pairs with their ...
Lottery Design for School Choice
This paper studies outcomes of the deferred acceptance algorithm in large random matching markets where priorities are generated either by a single lottery or by independent lotteries. In contrast to prior work, my model permits students to submit lists ...
Optimizing for Distributional Goals in School Choice Problems
I investigate three goals of school choice: welfare, encouraging neighborhood schools, and diversity. I use optimization problems to find the best stable and incentive compatible match for any combination of these objectives. These problems assume there ...
Comments