IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/matsoc/v129y2024icp93-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A characterization of the top trading cycles mechanism for the school choice problem

Author

Listed:
  • Dur, Umut
  • Paiement, Scott

Abstract

This paper characterizes the Top Trading Cycles (TTC) mechanism for the school choice problem where schools may have multiple available seats to be assigned to students. We first define weaker forms of fairness, consistency, and resource monotonicity. We show that the TTC mechanism is the unique Pareto efficient and strategy-proof mechanism that satisfies these weaker forms of fairness, consistency and resource monotonicity. We also show that in a well-defined sense TTC is the “most stable” Pareto efficient mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:matsoc:v:129:y:2024:i:c:p:93-100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2024.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165489624000374
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2024.03.006?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    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 & Yeon-Koo Che & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Olivier Tercieux, 2020. "Efficiency, Justified Envy, and Incentives in Priority-Based Matching," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 425-442, December.
    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. Lars Ehlers & Bettina Klaus, 2003. "Resource-Monotonicity for House Allocation," Working Papers 33, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. 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.
    7. Alcalde, Jose & Barbera, Salvador, 1994. "Top Dominance and the Possibility of Strategy-Proof Stable Solutions to Matching Problems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(3), pages 417-435, May.
    8. Abdulkadiroglu, Atila & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "House Allocation with Existing Tenants," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 233-260, October.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Lars Ehlers & Bettina Klaus, 2004. "Resource-monotonicity for house allocation problems," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 32(4), pages 545-560, August.
    12. Dur, Umut Mert & Wiseman, Thomas, 2019. "School choice with neighbors," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 101-109.
    13. Pycia, Marek & Unver, Utku, 2017. "Incentive compatible allocation and exchange of discrete resources," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    14. Onur Kesten, 2009. "Coalitional strategy-proofness and resource monotonicity for house allocation problems," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 38(1), pages 17-21, March.
    15. Afacan, Mustafa Oǧuz, 2013. "Alternative characterizations of Boston mechanism," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 176-179.
    16. 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.
    17. Doğan, Battal & Klaus, Bettina, 2018. "Object allocation via immediate-acceptance: Characterizations and an affirmative action application," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 140-156.
    18. Kesten, Onur, 2006. "On two competing mechanisms for priority-based allocation problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 155-171, March.
    19. Parag A. Pathak, 2011. "The Mechanism Design Approach to Student Assignment," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 513-536, September.
    20. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    21. 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.
    22. Morrill, Thayer, 2015. "Making just school assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 18-27.
    23. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    24. Kesten, Onur & Kurino, Morimitsu, 2019. "Strategy-proof improvements upon deferred acceptance: A maximal domain for possibility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 120-143.
    25. Thomson, William, 2012. "On The Axiomatics Of Resource Allocation: Interpreting The Consistency Principle," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 385-421, November.
    26. Ergin, Haluk I., 2000. "Consistency in house allocation problems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 77-97, August.
    27. Chun, Youngsub & Thomson, William, 1988. "Monotonicity properties of bargaining solutions when applied to economics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 11-27, February.
    28. Balinski, Michel & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "A Tale of Two Mechanisms: Student Placement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 73-94, January.
    29. Onur Kesten, 2010. "School Choice with Consent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1297-1348.
    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. Dur, Umut Mert, 2019. "The modified Boston mechanism," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-40.
    4. Umut Mert Dur & M. Utku Unver, 2015. "Two-Sided Matching via Balanced Exchange: Tuition and Worker Exchanges," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1508, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    5. Pycia, Marek & Unver, Utku, 2017. "Incentive compatible allocation and exchange of discrete resources," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    6. Dur, Umut Mert & Wiseman, Thomas, 2019. "School choice with neighbors," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 101-109.
    7. 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.
    8. Nadja Stroh-Maraun, 2020. "Pareto Efficiency in Weighted School Choice Problems," Working Papers Dissertations 64, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Martin Bichler & Alexander Hammerl & Thayer Morrill & Stefan Waldherr, 2021. "How to Assign Scarce Resources Without Money: Designing Information Systems that are Efficient, Truthful, and (Pretty) Fair," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 335-355, June.
    11. Harless, Patrick, 2014. "A School Choice Compromise: Between Immediate and Deferred Acceptance," MPRA Paper 61417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Afacan, Mustafa Oǧuz, 2013. "Alternative characterizations of Boston mechanism," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 176-179.

    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. Morrill, Thayer, 2015. "Making just school assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 18-27.
    3. 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.
    4. Karakaya, Mehmet & Klaus, Bettina & Schlegel, Jan Christoph, 2019. "Top trading cycles, consistency, and acyclic priorities for house allocation with existing tenants," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Morrill, Thayer & Roth, Alvin E., 2024. "Top trading cycles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    6. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tommy Andersson, 2022. "School Choice," NBER Working Papers 29822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Bettina Klaus & David F. Manlove & Francesca Rossi, 2014. "Matching under Preferences," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 14.07, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    8. Harless, Patrick, 2014. "A School Choice Compromise: Between Immediate and Deferred Acceptance," MPRA Paper 61417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. 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).
    10. Ayoade, Nickesha & Pápai, Szilvia, 2023. "School choice with preference rank classes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 317-341.
    11. Rodríguez-Álvarez, Carmelo & Romero-Medina, Antonio, 2024. "School choice with transferable student characteristics," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 103-124.
    12. Troyan, Peter & Delacrétaz, David & Kloosterman, Andrew, 2020. "Essentially stable matchings," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 370-390.
    13. Afacan, Mustafa Oğuz & Hu, Gaoji & Li, Jiangtao, 2024. "Housing markets since Shapley and Scarf," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Anno, Hidekazu & Kurino, Morimitsu, 2016. "On the operation of multiple matching markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 166-185.
    15. Lars Ehlers & Bettina Klaus, 2014. "Strategy-Proofness Makes the Difference: Deferred-Acceptance with Responsive Priorities," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 949-966, November.
    16. Thomson, William, 2011. "Chapter Twenty-One - Fair Allocation Rules," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 21, pages 393-506, Elsevier.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Ehlers, Lars & Klaus, Bettina, 2016. "Object allocation via deferred-acceptance: Strategy-proofness and comparative statics," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 128-146.
    20. Doğan, Battal & Klaus, Bettina, 2018. "Object allocation via immediate-acceptance: Characterizations and an affirmative action application," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 140-156.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Top trading cycles mechanism; School choice problem;

    JEL classification:

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

    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:matsoc:v:129:y:2024:i:c:p:93-100. 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/505565 .

    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.