Ex-ante fairness in the Boston and serial dictatorship mechanisms under pre-exam and post-exam preference submission

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lien, Jaimie W.; Zheng, Jie; Zhong, Xiaohan
• 署名单位: Chinese University of Hong Kong; Tsinghua University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2016.07.003
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 98-120
• 关键词: Preference submission timing; boston; serial dictatorship; Ex-ante fairness; Constrained school choice

摘要

In a school choice mechanism, school priorities are often based on student exam scores, by which student true ability may not be perfectly revealed. An ex-post fair matching mechanism (for example, Serial Dictatorship) can be undesirable in that it is not exante fair: it may not match students with higher abilities to better schools, although it always matches students with higher scores to better schools. In this paper we consider a potential way of improving ex-ante fairness a Boston mechanism with the requirement that students submit their preferences before the exam score is realized (the pre-BOS mechanism). This mechanism is more likely to achieve complete ex-ante fairness, in that students with higher ability are always matched with better schools. However, the other mechanisms (pre-/post-SD and post-BOS) can always implement stochastic ex-ante fairness (students with higher ability having higher probability of admission to better schools), while pre-BOS may not. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.