Making just school assignments

Thayer Morrill

Games and Economic Behavior, 2015, vol. 92, issue C, 18-27

Abstract: It is impossible for a mechanism to be strategyproof, Pareto efficient, and eliminate justified envy. However, little is known to what extent a strategyproof and efficient mechanism can limit justified envy. We define an assignment to be unjust if a student i is not assigned to a school a that she prefers to her own assignment, i has higher priority at a than some student j who is assigned to a, and none of the students ranked higher at a than i are dependent on j. We prove that Top Trading Cycles is the unique mechanism that is strategyproof, efficient, and just. This demonstrates that a strictly stronger notion of fairness than justness is either unachievable by a strategyproof and efficient mechanism or it is only achievable by TTC. We extend this characterization to the general case when schools may have arbitrary capacities by introducing the concept of reducibility.

Keywords: Top trading cycles; School choice; Assignment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D61 D78 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:92:y:2015:i:c:p:18-27

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.05.004

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