How lotteries in school choice help to level the playing field

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Basteck, Christian; Klaus, Bettina; Kuebler, Dorothea
• 署名单位: University of Lausanne; Technical University of Berlin
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2021.05.010
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 198-237
• 关键词: School choice; Immediate acceptance mechanism; Deferred acceptance mechanism; lotteries; experiment; market design

摘要

School authorities in the UK and the US advocate the use of lotteries to desegregate schools. We study a school choice mechanism employed in Berlin where a lottery quota is embedded in the immediate acceptance (IA) mechanism, and compare it to the deferred acceptance mechanism (DA) with a lottery quota. In both mechanisms, some seats are allocated based on academic achievement (e.g., grades), while seats in the lottery quota are allocated randomly. We find that, in theory, a lottery quota strengthens truth-telling in DA by eliminating non-truth-telling equilibria. Furthermore, the equilibrium outcome is stable for DA with a lottery but not for IA with a lottery. These predictions are borne out in the experiment. Moreover, the lottery quota leads to more diverse school populations in the experiment, as predicted. Students with the lowest grades profit more from the introduction of the lottery under IA than under DA. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.