IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v197y2021ics0022053121001629.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Information acquisition and provision in school choice: An experimental study

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Yan
  • He, YingHua

Abstract

When participating in school choice, students often spend substantial effort acquiring information about schools. We investigate how two popular mechanisms incentivize students' information acquisition in the laboratory. While students' willingness to pay for information is significantly greater under the Immediate than the Deferred Acceptance mechanism, most students over-invest in information acquisition, especially when they are more curious or believe that others invest more. Additionally, some students never invest in information acquisition but benefit equally from information provision. Both free provision and costly acquisition of information on students' own preferences increase their payoffs and allocative efficiency, whereas provision of information that helps students better assessing admission chances reduces wasteful investments. Our results also suggest that agents' information preferences, such as curiosity, can play an important role in market design theory and policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Yan & He, YingHua, 2021. "Information acquisition and provision in school choice: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:197:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121001629
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053121001629
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2021.105345?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. Pais, Joana & Pintér, Ágnes, 2008. "School choice and information: An experimental study on matching mechanisms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 303-328, September.
    2. 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.
    3. Grenet, Julien & He, Yinghua & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Decentralizing centralized matching markets: Implications from early offers in university admissions," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2019-208, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Gabrielle Fack & Julien Grenet & Yinghua He, 2019. "Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice and College Admissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1486-1529, April.
    5. Guillen, Pablo & Hakimov, Rustamdjan, 2018. "The effectiveness of top-down advice in strategy-proof mechanisms: A field experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 505-511.
    6. Gadi Barlevy & Pietro Veronesi, 2000. "Information Acquisition in Financial Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 79-90.
    7. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad, 1992. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 566-578, June.
    8. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    9. Guillen, Pablo & Hing, Alexander, 2014. "Lying through their teeth: Third party advice and truth telling in a strategy proof mechanism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 178-185.
    10. Andrew Schotter & Isabel Trevino, 2014. "Belief Elicitation in the Laboratory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 103-128, August.
    11. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488.
    12. Caterina Calsamiglia & Guillaume Haeringer & Flip Klijn, 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1860-1874, September.
    13. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1998. "Strategic Information Gathering before a Contract Is Offered," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-200, July.
    14. Grant, Simon & Kajii, Atsushi & Polak, Ben, 1998. "Intrinsic Preference for Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 233-259, December.
    15. Christian Hellwig & Laura Veldkamp, 2009. "Knowing What Others Know: Coordination Motives in Information Acquisition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 223-251.
    16. Olivier Compte & Philippe Jehiel, 2007. "Auctions and information acquisition: sealed bid or dynamic formats?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 355-372, June.
    17. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson & Guillermo Moloche & Stephen Weinberg, 2006. "Costly Information Acquisition: Experimental Analysis of a Boundedly Rational Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1043-1068, September.
    18. Tanjim Hossain & Ryo Okui, 2013. "The Binarized Scoring Rule," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 984-1001.
    19. Gabrielle Fack & Julien Grenet & Yinghua He, 2019. "Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice and College Admissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1486-1529, April.
    20. Monique De Haan & Pieter A. Gautier & Hessel Oosterbeek & Bas van der Klaauw, 2023. "The Performance of School Assignment Mechanisms in Practice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(2), pages 388-455.
    21. Joana Pais & Ágnes Pintér & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2011. "College Admissions And The Role Of Information: An Experimental Study," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(3), pages 713-737, August.
    22. Chen, Yan & Sonmez, Tayfun, 2006. "School choice: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 202-231, March.
    23. Susan Dynarski & CJ Libassi & Katherine Michelmore & Stephanie Owen, 2021. "Closing the Gap: The Effect of Reducing Complexity and Uncertainty in College Pricing on the Choices of Low-Income Students," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(6), pages 1721-1756, June.
    24. 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.
    25. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2010. "Information Acquisition and Under-Diversification," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 779-805.
    26. Shi, Xianwen, 2012. "Optimal auctions with information acquisition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 666-686.
    27. Yan Chen & Ming Jiang & Onur Kesten, 2020. "An empirical evaluation of Chinese college admissions reforms through a natural experiment," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(50), pages 31696-31705, December.
    28. Shengwu Li, 2017. "Obviously Strategy-Proof Mechanisms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3257-3287, November.
    29. Bulow, Jeremy I & Geanakoplos, John D & Klemperer, Paul D, 1985. "Multimarket Oligopoly: Strategic Substitutes and Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 488-511, June.
    30. Pablo Guillen & Rustamdjan Hakimov, 2017. "Not quite the best response: truth-telling, strategy-proof matching, and the manipulation of others," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 670-686, September.
    31. Caroline Hoxby & Christopher Avery, 2013. "The Missing "One-Offs": The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(1 (Spring), pages 1-65.
    32. Eliaz, Kfir & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Paying for confidence: An experimental study of the demand for non-instrumental information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 304-324, November.
    33. Justine S. Hastings & Jeffrey M. Weinstein, 2008. "Information, School Choice, and Academic Achievement: Evidence from Two Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1373-1414.
    34. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    35. Bednar, Jenna & Chen, Yan & Liu, Tracy Xiao & Page, Scott, 2012. "Behavioral spillovers and cognitive load in multiple games: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 12-31.
    36. Gerardi, Dino & Yariv, Leeat, 2008. "Information acquisition in committees," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 436-459, March.
    37. Yaron Azrieli & Christopher P. Chambers & Paul J. Healy, 2018. "Incentives in Experiments: A Theoretical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1472-1503.
    38. Jacques Crémer & Yossi Spiegel & Charles Zheng, 2009. "Auctions with costly information acquisition," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(1), pages 41-72, January.
    39. Szkup, Michal & Trevino, Isabel, 2015. "Information acquisition in global games of regime change," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 387-428.
    40. Caroline M. Hoxby & Sarah Turner, 2015. "What High-Achieving Low-Income Students Know about College," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 514-517, May.
    41. Nicky J. Welton & Howard H. Z. Thom, 2015. "Value of Information," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 35(5), pages 564-566, July.
    42. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191.
    43. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Valimaki, 2002. "Information Acquisition and Efficient Mechanism Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1007-1033, May.
    44. Robert Hauswald & Robert Marquez, 2006. "Competition and Strategic Information Acquisition in Credit Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 967-1000.
    45. Yan Chen & Ming Jiang & Onur Kesten & Stéphane Robin & Min Zhu, 2018. "Matching in the large: An experimental study," Post-Print halshs-01973298, HAL.
    46. Umut Dur & Robert G. Hammond & Thayer Morrill, 2018. "Identifying the Harm of Manipulable School-Choice Mechanisms," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 187-213, February.
    47. Nicola Persico, 2000. "Information Acquisition in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 135-148, January.
    48. Dang, Tri Vi, 2008. "Bargaining with endogenous information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 339-354, May.
    49. ,, 2015. "Serial dictatorship: the unique optimal allocation rule when information is endogenous," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    50. Tingting Ding & Andrew Schotter, 2019. "Learning and Mechanism Design: An Experimental Test of School Matching Mechanisms with Intergenerational Advice," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2779-2804.
    51. Featherstone, Clayton R. & Niederle, Muriel, 2016. "Boston versus deferred acceptance in an interim setting: An experimental investigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 353-375.
    52. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.
    53. Page, Lionel & Siemroth, Christoph, 2017. "An experimental analysis of information acquisition in prediction markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 354-378.
    54. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Present-bias, quasi-hyperbolic discounting, and fixed costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 205-223, July.
    55. Bogaçhan Çelen & Kyle Hyndman, 2012. "Social Learning Through Endogenous Information Acquisition: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1525-1548, August.
    56. Kfir Eliaz & Andrew Schotter, 2007. "Experimental Testing of Intrinsic Preferences for NonInstrumental Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 166-169, May.
    57. repec:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:10:p:2779-2804. is not listed on IDEAS
    58. Vitali Gretschko & Alexander Rajko, 2015. "Excess information acquisition in auctions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 335-355, September.
    59. Alvin E. Roth, 1982. "The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 617-628, November.
    60. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Duffy, John & Kim, SunTak, 2017. "Voting with endogenous information acquisition: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 316-338.
    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. Artemov, Georgy, 2021. "Assignment mechanisms: Common preferences and information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    2. Aycinena, Diego & Elbittar, Alexander & Gomberg, Andrei & Rentschler, Lucas, 2023. "Does free information provision crowd out costly information acquisition? It's a matter of timing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 182-195.
    3. Marta Serra-Garcia & Nora Szech, 2022. "The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 4815-4834, July.
    4. Christian Basteck & Marco Mantovani, 2023. "Aiding applicants: leveling the playing field within the immediate acceptance mechanism," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(1), pages 187-220, February.
    5. Ethem Akyol, 2022. "Ex-Ante Welfare Superiority of the Boston Mechanism Over the Deferred Acceptance Mechanism," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1189-1220, December.
    6. Barigozzi, Francesca & Domínguez, José J. & Montinari, Natalia, 2024. "Entering a gender-neutral workplace? College students’ expectations and the impact of information provision," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    7. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Flip Klijn & Marc Vorsatz, 2023. "Constrained school choice: an experimental QRE analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 587-624, October.
    8. Maxey, Tyler, 2024. "School choice with costly information acquisition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 248-268.

    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. Yan Chen & YingHua He, 2022. "Information acquisition and provision in school choice: a theoretical investigation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(1), pages 293-327, July.
    2. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488, June.
    3. Ran I. Shorrer & Sandor Sovago, 2017. "Obvious Mistakes in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-107/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Avinatan Hassidim & Assaf Romm & Ran I. Shorrer, 2021. "The Limits of Incentives in Economic Matching Procedures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 951-963, February.
    5. Daniel Stephenson, 2022. "Assignment feedback in school choice mechanisms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1467-1491, November.
    6. Yan Chen & Peter Cramton & John A. List & Axel Ockenfels, 2021. "Market Design, Human Behavior, and Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5317-5348, September.
    7. Hoyer, B. & Stroh-Maraun, N., 2020. "Matching strategies of heterogeneous agents under incomplete information in a university clearinghouse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 453-481.
    8. Pablo Guillen & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2021. "Strategy-proofness in experimental matching markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 650-668, June.
    9. Afacan, Mustafa Oğuz & Evdokimov, Piotr & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Turhan, Bertan, 2022. "Parallel markets in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 181-201.
    10. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Experiments On Matching Markets: A Survey," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 153, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Yoan Hermstrüwer, 2019. "Transparency and Fairness in School Choice Mechanisms," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2019_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    12. Klijn, Flip & Pais, Joana & Vorsatz, Marc, 2019. "Static versus dynamic deferred acceptance in school choice: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 147-163.
    13. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Flip Klijn & Marc Vorsatz, 2023. "Constrained school choice: an experimental QRE analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 587-624, October.
    14. Umut Dur & Robert G. Hammond & Thayer Morrill, 2019. "The Secure Boston Mechanism: theory and experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 918-953, December.
    15. Bó, Inácio & Hakimov, Rustamdjan, 2022. "The iterative deferred acceptance mechanism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 411-433.
    16. Christian Basteck & Marco Mantovani, 2023. "Aiding applicants: leveling the playing field within the immediate acceptance mechanism," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(1), pages 187-220, February.
    17. Bikhchandani, Sushil, 2010. "Information acquisition and full surplus extraction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2282-2308, November.
    18. Grenet, Julien & He, YingHua & Kübler, Dorothea, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 130(6), pages 1-1.
    19. Chen, Yan & Kesten, Onur, 2019. "Chinese college admissions and school choice reforms: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 83-100.
    20. Li, Yunan, 2019. "Efficient mechanisms with information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 279-328.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information acquisition; Information provision; School choice; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:jetheo:v:197:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121001629. 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/622869 .

    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.