Decentralized College Admissions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Che, Yeon-Koo; Koh, Youngwoo
• 署名单位: Columbia University; Hanyang University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/688082
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1295-1338
• 关键词: Incentives; STABILITY; MARKET; curse

摘要

We study decentralized college admissions with uncertain student preferences. Colleges strategically admit students likely to be overlooked by competitors. Highly ranked students may receive fewer admissions or have a higher chance of receiving no admissions than those ranked below. When students' attributes are multidimensional, colleges avoid head-on competition by placing excessive weight on school-specific attributes such as essays. Restricting the number of applications or wait-listing alleviates enrollment uncertainty, but the outcomes are inefficient and unfair. A centralized matching via Gale and Shapley's deferred acceptance algorithm attains efficiency and fairness but may make some colleges worse off than under decentralized matching.