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ECIN Replication Package for "Designing School Choice Mechanisms: A Structural Model and Demand Estimation"

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Robert Hammond, University of Alabama; Zhiyi Xu, Bates White Economic Consulting

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  Counterfactural 10/10/2023 01:59:PM
  Data processing 10/10/2023 01:59:PM
  Estimation 10/10/2023 01:59:PM
  Functions 10/10/2023 02:00:PM
  Public data 10/10/2023 02:00:PM
ReadMe.txt text/plain 3.6 KB 10/10/2023 09:59:AM

Project Citation: 

Hammond, Robert, and Xu, Zhiyi. ECIN Replication Package for “Designing School Choice Mechanisms: A Structural Model and Demand Estimation.” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-10-10. https://doi.org/10.3886/E194385V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Designing the markets that allocate public school seats is a crucial policy consideration. This paper compares the design of school choice mechanisms in terms of economic efficiency, fairness, and strategic behavior. We estimate demand for schools using data from a large US public school system with novel indicators of students’ levels of strategic sophistication. We interpret our results in the context of what design choices policymakers should emphasize as they design their assignment process. The mechanism comparisons support the use of the Deferred Acceptance Algorithm. Even when implemented with constrained lists, DA has little justified envy according to the standard efficiency metrics from the literature. This supports the use of DA even in settings where there are large numbers of schools and districts are inclined to constrain the list length. Further, we find important benefits of reserving a set of seats to be assigned by a pure lottery. By identifying which design choices have large effects and which do not, we offer concrete policy recommendations for school districts to best achieve their objectives in school assignment.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms School choice; educational policy; strategic sophistication
JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      C57 Econometrics of Games and Auctions
      C78 Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
      I20 Education and Research Institutions: General
Manuscript Number:  View help for Manuscript Number ECIN-Aug-2022-0366.R1


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Published Versions

V2 [2023-10-24]

V1 [2023-10-10]

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