A modification aimed at reducing the manipulability and inefficiency of the Boston school choice mechanism

Benoit Decerf ()
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Benoit Decerf: World Bank

Social Choice and Welfare, 2023, vol. 60, issue 1, No 7, 75-101

Abstract: Abstract The Boston mechanism (BOS) is widely used for the assignment of students to schools. Yet, BOS is highly manipulable and, therefore, may lead to Pareto inferior assignments. We propose a new indirect matching mechanism ( $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS ) that is a slight variant of BOS. $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS is less manipulable than BOS in two important ways: (i) students always have a best reply featuring truthful reported preference, (ii) rational students avoid particular re-rankings that are typical in BOS. Most importantly, the lower manipulability of $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS helps reaching more efficient assignments than those reached by BOS. We show that each equilibrium of BOS is associated to a set of equilibria of $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS , all of which are Pareto superior. $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS generalizes to a class of mechanisms whose members are even less manipulable than $${{ NBOS }}$$ NBOS .

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s00355-021-01331-0

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