Cognitive ability and games of school choice

Christian Basteck and Marco Mantovani

No 2016-037, SFB 649 Discussion Papers from Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk

Abstract: We take school admission mechanisms to the lab to test whether the widely-used manipulable Boston-mechanism disadvantages students of lower cognitive ability and whether this leads to ability segregation across schools. Results show this is the case: lower ability participants receive lower payoffs and are over-represented at the worst school. Under the strategy-proof Deferred Acceptance mechanism, payoff differences are reduced, and ability distributions across schools harmonized. Hence, we find support for the argument that a strategy-proof mechanisms 'levels the playing-field'. Finally, we document a trade-off between equity and efficiency in that average payoffs are larger under Boston than under Deferred Acceptance.

Keywords: laboratory experiment; school choice; strategy-proofness; cognitive ability; mechanism design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C91 D82 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Related works:
Journal Article: Cognitive ability and games of school choice (2018)
Working Paper: Cognitive Ability and Games of School Choice (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2016-037

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