Seminar: The performance of school assignment mechanisms in practice

Time: 13.00-14.00 hours
Location: CPB-office, Van Stolkweg 14, The Hague

Presentation: Pieter Gautier (Vrije Universiteit)

Discussant: Joppe de Ree (CPB)

Language: English

Registration: Please register here

Abstract subject:
Theory points to a potential trade-off between two main school assignment mechanisms; Boston and Deferred Acceptance (DA). While DA is strategyproof and gives a stable matching, Boston might outperform A in terms of ex-ante efficiency. We quantify the (dis)advantages of the mechanisms by using information about actual choices under Boston complemented with survey data eliciting students’ school preferences. We find that under Boston around 8% of the students apply to another school than their most-preferred school. We compare allocations resulting from Boston with DA with single tie-breaking (one central lottery; DA-STB) and multiple tie-breaking (separate lottery per school; DA-MTB). DA-STB places more students in their top-n schools, for any n, than Boston and results in higher average welfare. We find a trade-off between DA-STB and DA-MTB. DA-STB places more students in their single most-preferred school than DA-MTB, but fewer in their top-n, for n is greater or equal to 2. Finally, students from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit most from a switch from Boston to any of the DA mechanisms.

Policy seminars
CPB organises policy seminars for policy makers, researchers and other stakeholders. These policy seminars focus on policy implications. Policy seminars are held on Thursday from 1.00 pm. to 2.00 pm.

Seminars
CPB also organises seminars for researchers. During these seminars, always held on Tuesday from 1.00 pm. to 2.00 pm., academic papers are presented and discussed.

Unsubscribe to the alert service
When you're registered for a seminar, you will be automatically invited for coming seminars. Here you can unsubscribe to this alert service (click button "verzenden"!).