Games of school choice under the Boston mechanism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ergin, H; Sönmez, T
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Boston College
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2005.02.002
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 215-237
• 关键词: School choice; boston mechanism; priority matching mechanisms; student-optimal stable mechanism; two-sided matching

摘要

Many school districts in the U.S. use a student assignment mechanism that we refer to as the Boston mechanism. Under this mechanism, a student loses his priority at a school unless his parents rank it as their first choice. Therefore, parents are given incentives to rank high oil their list the schools where the student has a good chance of getting in. We characterize the Nash equilibria of the induced preference revelation game. An important policy implication of our result is that a transition from the Boston mechanism to the student-optimal stable mechanism would lead to unambiguous efficiency gains. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.