EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Aiding applicants: leveling the playing field within the immediate acceptance mechanism

Christian Basteck (christian.basteck@wzb.eu) and Marco Mantovani
Additional contact information
Christian Basteck: WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Review of Economic Design, 2023, vol. 27, issue 1, No 8, 187-220

Abstract: Abstract In school choice problems, the widely used manipulable Immediate Acceptance mechanism (IA) disadvantages unsophisticated applicants, but may ex-ante Pareto dominate any strategy-proof alternative. In these cases, it may be preferable to aid applicants within IA, rather than to abandon it. In a laboratory experiment, we first document a substantial gap in strategy choices and outcomes between subjects of higher and lower cognitive ability under IA. We then test whether disclosing information on past applications levels the playing field. The treatment is effective in partially reducing the gap between applicants of above- and below-median cognitive ability and in curbing ability segregation across schools, but may leave the least able applicants further behind.

Keywords: Laboratory experiment; School choice; Immediate acceptance; 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: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10058-021-00283-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: Aiding Applicants: Leveling the Playing Field within the Immediate Acceptance Mechanism (2021) Downloads
Working Paper: Aiding applicants: Leveling the playing field within the immediate acceptance mechanism (2021) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:reecde:v:27:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10058-021-00283-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10058

DOI: 10.1007/s10058-021-00283-2

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Economic Design is currently edited by Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Fuhito Kojima and Tilman Börgers

More articles in Review of Economic Design from Springer, Society for Economic Design
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla (sonal.shukla@springer.com) and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (indexing@springernature.com).

 
Page updated 2024-12-29
Handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:27:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10058-021-00283-2