Reserve Design: Unintended Consequences and the Demise of Boston's Walk Zones

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dur, Umut; Kominers, Scott Duke; Pathak, Parag A.; Sonmez, Tayfun
• 署名单位: North Carolina State University; Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Boston College
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/699974
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 2457-2479
• 关键词: AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION; school choice; mechanisms; EFFICIENCY

摘要

We show that in the presence of admissions reserves, the effect of the precedence order (i.e., the order in which different types of seats are filled) is comparable to the effect of adjusting reserve sizes. Either lowering the precedence of reserve seats at a school or increasing the school's reserve size weakly increases reserve-group assignment at that school. Using data from Boston Public Schools, we show that reserve and precedence adjustments have similar quantitative effects. Transparency about these issues-in particular, how precedence unintentionally undermined intended policy-led to the elimination of walk zone reserves in Boston's public school match.