Respecting priorities versus respecting preferences in school choice: When is there a trade-off ?

Estelle Cantillon, Li Chen and Juan Sebastian Pereyra Barreiro

No 2022-39, Working Papers ECARES from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: A classic trade-off that school districts face when deciding which matching algorithm to use is that it is not possible to always respect both priorities and preferences. The student-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm (DA) respects priorities but can lead to inefficient allocations. The top trading cycle algorithm (TTC) respects preferences but may violate priorities. We identify a new condition on school choice markets under which DA is efficient and there is a unique allocation that respects priorities. Our condition generalizes earlier conditions by placing restrictions on how preferences and priorities relate to one another only on the parts that are relevant for the assignment. We discuss how our condition sheds light on existing empirical findings. We show through simulations that our condition significantly expands the range of known environments for which DA is efficient.

Keywords: Matching; envyfreeness; efficiency; priorities; preferences; matching algorithms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D47 D78 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 p.
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Respecting Priorities versus Respecting Preferences In School Choice: When is there a Trade-off? (2024)
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