IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v92y2015icp18-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Making just school assignments

Author

Listed:
  • Morrill, Thayer

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Morrill, Thayer, 2015. "Making just school assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 18-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:92:y:2015:i:c:p:18-27
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.05.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825615000810
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2015.05.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Szilvia Papai, 2000. "Strategyproof Assignment by Hierarchical Exchange," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1403-1434, November.
    2. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The New York City High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 364-367, May.
    3. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the New York City High School Match," NBER Working Papers 14864, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Fuhito Kojima & Mihai Manea, 2010. "Axioms for Deferred Acceptance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 633-653, March.
    5. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2001. "A New Solution to the Random Assignment Problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 295-328, October.
    6. Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez, 2013. "School Admissions Reform in Chicago and England: Comparing Mechanisms by Their Vulnerability to Manipulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 80-106, February.
    7. Pycia, Marek & Unver, Utku, 2017. "Incentive compatible allocation and exchange of discrete resources," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    8. Thayer Morrill, 2013. "An alternative characterization of the deferred acceptance algorithm," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(1), pages 19-28, February.
    9. Thayer Morrill, 2013. "An alternative characterization of top trading cycles," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(1), pages 181-197, September.
    10. Fuhito Kojima & M. Ünver, 2014. "The “Boston” school-choice mechanism: an axiomatic approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 515-544, April.
    11. Abdulkadiroglu, Atila & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "House Allocation with Existing Tenants," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 233-260, October.
    12. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2005. "The Boston Public School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 368-371, May.
    13. Kojima, Fuhito & Manea, Mihai, 2010. "Incentives in the probabilistic serial mechanism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 106-123, January.
    14. Yeon-Koo Che & Fuhito Kojima, 2010. "Asymptotic Equivalence of Probabilistic Serial and Random Priority Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(5), pages 1625-1672, September.
    15. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    16. Sönmez, Tayfun & Ünver, M. Utku, 2010. "House allocation with existing tenants: A characterization," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 425-445, July.
    17. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-Proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1954-1978, December.
    18. Balinski, Michel & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "A Tale of Two Mechanisms: Student Placement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 73-94, January.
    19. Onur Kesten, 2010. "School Choice with Consent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1297-1348.
    20. Alvin E. Roth, 1982. "The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 617-628, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Yeon-Koo Che & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Olivier Tercieux, 2017. "Minimizing Justified Envy in School Choice: The Design of New Orleans' OneApp," NBER Working Papers 23265, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Patrick Harless & William Phan, 2020. "On endowments and indivisibility: partial ownership in the Shapley–Scarf model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(2), pages 411-435, September.
    3. Battal Doğan & Lars Ehlers, 2022. "Robust Minimal Instability of the Top Trading Cycles Mechanism," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 556-582, November.
    4. Battal Doğan & M. Bumin Yenmez, 2023. "When does an additional stage improve welfare in centralized assignment?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1145-1173, November.
    5. José Alcalde & Antonio Romero-Medina, 2017. "Fair student placement," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(2), pages 293-307, August.
    6. Dur, Umut & Paiement, Scott, 2024. "A characterization of the top trading cycles mechanism for the school choice problem," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 93-100.
    7. Yajing Chen, 2016. "New axioms for immediate acceptance," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(4), pages 329-337, December.
    8. Dur, Umut & Morrill, Thayer, 2018. "Competitive equilibria in school assignment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 269-274.
    9. Altuntaş, Açelya & Phan, William, 2022. "Trading probabilities along cycles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    10. Han, Xiang, 2018. "Stable and efficient resource allocation under weak priorities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-20.
    11. Siwei Chen & Yajing Chen & Chia‐Ling Hsu, 2023. "New axioms for top trading cycles," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1064-1077, October.
    12. Troyan, Peter & Delacrétaz, David & Kloosterman, Andrew, 2020. "Essentially stable matchings," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 370-390.
    13. Yajing Chen, 2017. "New axioms for deferred acceptance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 393-408, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fuhito Kojima & M. Ünver, 2014. "The “Boston” school-choice mechanism: an axiomatic approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 515-544, April.
    2. Dur, Umut & Paiement, Scott, 2024. "A characterization of the top trading cycles mechanism for the school choice problem," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 93-100.
    3. Harless, Patrick, 2014. "A School Choice Compromise: Between Immediate and Deferred Acceptance," MPRA Paper 61417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Afacan, Mustafa Og̃uz & Dur, Umut Mert, 2017. "When preference misreporting is Harm[less]ful?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 16-24.
    5. Kojima, Fuhito, 2013. "Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-14.
    6. Morrill, Thayer & Roth, Alvin E., 2024. "Top trading cycles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    7. Kesten, Onur & Unver, Utku, 2015. "A theory of school choice lotteries," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    8. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tommy Andersson, 2022. "School Choice," NBER Working Papers 29822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Anno, Hidekazu & Kurino, Morimitsu, 2016. "On the operation of multiple matching markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 166-185.
    10. Can, Burak & Pourpouneh, Mohsen & Storcken, Ton, 2017. "Cost of transformation: a measure on matchings," Research Memorandum 015, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    11. Chen, Yan & Jiang, Ming & Kesten, Onur & Robin, Stéphane & Zhu, Min, 2018. "Matching in the large: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 295-317.
    12. Hatfield, John William & Kojima, Fuhito & Narita, Yusuke, 2016. "Improving schools through school choice: A market design approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 186-211.
    13. Ayoade, Nickesha & Pápai, Szilvia, 2023. "School choice with preference rank classes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 317-341.
    14. Afacan, Mustafa Oğuz & Dur, Umut Mert, 2017. "Incompatibility between stability and consistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 135-137.
    15. Che, Yeon-Koo & Kim, Jinwoo & Kojima, Fuhito, 2015. "Efficient assignment with interdependent values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 54-86.
    16. Basteck, Christian & Klaus, Bettina & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "How lotteries in school choice help to level the playing field," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 198-237.
    17. Thayer Morrill, 2013. "An alternative characterization of top trading cycles," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(1), pages 181-197, September.
    18. Onur Kesten, 2012. "On two kinds of manipulation for school choice problems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 677-693, November.
    19. Han, Xiang, 2024. "On the efficiency and fairness of deferred acceptance with single tie-breaking," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    20. Mustafa Oğuz Afacan & Umut Dur, 2023. "Strategy‐proof size improvement: is it possible?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(2), pages 321-338, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Top trading cycles; School choice; Assignment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:92:y:2015:i:c:p:18-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.