Transparency and information acquisition in college admissions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Koh, Youngwoo; Lim, Wooyoung
• 署名单位: Seoul National University (SNU); Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2026.05.008
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: School choice; serial dictatorship; mechanisms; STABILITY; fairness

摘要

We theoretically and experimentally study centralized college admissions in which colleges evaluate students under a 'translucent' admission system and students can learn each college's suitability through costly information acquisition. In centralized matching via Gale and Shapley's deferred acceptance algorithm, students decide whether to acquire information before submitting their rank-order lists. However, uncertainty about the final assignment lowers the expected gain from learning, thereby reducing social welfare, compared to a scenario without such uncertainty. Our experiments demonstrate that the welfare loss is greater with more opaque admission systems. The empirical social welfare obtained in our experimental treatments is consistently lower than the theoretical welfare, and we identify non-equilibrium learning as a main contributor.