Verifiable affirmative action in Chinese high school admissions

Xinquan Hu and Jun Zhang

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Abstract: We study the affirmative action policy in Chinese high school admissions, where high schools reserve a proportion of their quotas for graduates of low-performing middle schools. In line with the tradition of accountability, Chinese policymakers aim to ensure a verifiable allocation of reserved seats. We recognize the verifiability of widely used sequential mechanisms, which allocate reserved and open seats in separate stages. However, these mechanisms suffer from strategic complexity, leading to inefficiency and unfairness in the outcome. We then formalize a concept of verifiability for simultaneous mechanisms, which allocate all seats in one stage. We prove that a mechanism is individually rational, strategy-proof, and verifiable if and only if it is the deferred acceptance mechanism associated with one of two choice rules we characterize. We recommend a specific choice rule and mechanism, and discuss their benefits.

Date: 2025-04
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