Resolving Conflicting Preferences in School Choice: The 'Boston' Mechanism Reconsidered

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila; Che, Yeon‐Koo; Yasuda, Yosuke

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1456088

Cited by 60 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Similarly, students may have the same preferences over schools as evidenced by Abdulkadiroglu et al (2011). In the next proposition, we consider this case and show that the student-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm with minority reserves Pareto dominates those with no affirmative action and majority quotas.…”

Section: Common Preferences and Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effective affirmative action in school choice

Hafalır

Yenmez

Yıldırım

2013

Theoretical Economics

210

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The prevalent affirmative action policy in school choice limits the number of admitted majority students to give minority students higher chances to attend their desired schools. There have been numerous efforts to reconcile affirmative action policies with celebrated matching mechanisms such as the deferred acceptance and top trading cycles algorithms. Nevertheless, it is theoretically shown that under these algorithms, the policy based on majority quotas may be detrimental to minorities. Using simulations, we find that this is a more common phenomenon rather than a peculiarity. To circumvent the inefficiency caused by majority quotas, we offer a different interpretation of the affirmative action policies based on minority reserves. With minority reserves, schools give higher priority to minority students up to the point that the minorities fill the reserves. We compare the welfare effects of these policies. The deferred acceptance algorithm with minority reserves Pareto dominates the one with majority quotas. Our simulations, which allow for correlations between student preferences and school priorities, indicate that minorities are, on average, better off with minority reserves while adverse effects on majorities are mitigated.

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Section: Common Preferences and Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effective affirmative action in school choice

Hafalır

Yenmez

Yıldırım

2013

Theoretical Economics

210

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“…A significant literature debates the trade-offs between manipulable and non-manipulable mechanisms (Ergin and Sonmez, 2006;Pathak and Sonmez, 2008;Miralles, 2009;Abdulkadiroglu et al, 2011;Featherstone and Niederle, 2016;Troyan, 2012;Pathak and Sonmez, 2013). Theoretical results from this literature have been used to guide redesigns of matching markets (Roth and Peranson, 1999;Abdulkadiroglu et al, 2006Abdulkadiroglu et al, , 2009.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theoretical results on this question yield ambiguous answers. Abdulkadiroglu et al (2011) use a stylized model to show that strategic choice in the Immediate Acceptance mechanism, also known as the (old) Boston mechanism, can effectively elicit cardinal information on preferences and can improve average student welfare. However, this potential benefit comes at a cost of violating notions of fairness and stability of the final assignments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demand Analysis using Strategic Reports: An application to a school choice mechanism

Agarwal

Somaini

2014

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Several school districts use assignment systems that give students an incentive to misrepresent their preferences. We find evidence consistent with strategic behavior in Cambridge. Such strategizing can complicate preference analysis. This paper develops empirical methods for studying random utility models in a new and large class of school choice mechanisms. We show that preferences are non-parametrically identified under either sufficient variation in choice environments or a preference shifter. We then develop a tractable estimation procedure and apply it to Cambridge. Estimates suggest that while 82% of students are assigned to their stated first choice, only 72% are assigned to their true first choice because students avoid ranking competitive schools. Assuming that students behave optimally, the Immediate Acceptance mechanism is preferred by the average student to the Deferred Acceptance mechanism by an equivalent of 0.08 miles. The estimated difference is smaller if beliefs are biased, and reversed if students report truthfully.

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“…For instance, ex-ante optimality of PM is established in Hylland and Zeckhauser (1979) and -with perfectly aligned ordinal preferences -superiority of BM over DA is established in Abdulkadiroğlu et al (2011). Yet, to the best of our knowledge, no prior paper has shown ''social welfare optimality'' of these mechanisms.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is in sharp contrast with Gale and Shapley's (1962) well-known deferred acceptance (DA) algorithm, where betting on the most-preferred option does not harm the agent's chances at other positions. In the context with perfectly aligned ordinal preferences, it is known that DA implements a Pareto-pessimal assignment rule (Miralles, 2008;Abdulkadiroğlu et al, 2011). That is, every other IC assignment rule weakly Pareto-dominates that provided by the dominant strategy equilibrium of DA.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare-maximizing assignment of agents to hierarchical positions

Hafalır

Miralles

2015

Journal of Mathematical Economics

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a b s t r a c tWe allocate agents to three kinds of hierarchical positions: top, medium, and low. No monetary transfers are allowed. We solve for the incentive-compatible (IC) mechanisms that maximize a family of weighted social welfares that includes utilitarian and Rawlsian welfares. When the market is tough (all agents bear positive risk of obtaining a low position in any IC and feasible mechanism), then the pseudomarket mechanism with equal budgets (PM) and the Boston mechanism without priorities (BM) yield identical assignments which are always optimal. Otherwise, when the market is mild, PM and BM differ and each one implements the optimal rule under different assumptions on the curvature of virtual valuations. We also establish that both BM and PM mechanisms guarantee IC Pareto-optimal assignments for a domain of preference distributions satisfying weak assumptions.

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Resolving Conflicting Preferences in School Choice: The 'Boston' Mechanism Reconsidered

Cited by 60 publications

References 18 publications

Effective affirmative action in school choice

Effective affirmative action in school choice

Demand Analysis using Strategic Reports: An application to a school choice mechanism

Welfare-maximizing assignment of agents to hierarchical positions

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