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On two kinds of manipulation for school choice problems

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  • Onur Kesten

Abstract

Many school districts in the US. employ centralized clearing houses to assign students to public schools. An important potential threat against any school choice mechanism is the tendency of schools to circumvent the procedure via two kinds of strategic manipulation: manipulation via capacities and manipulation via pre-arranged matches. This paper studies the extent of the vulnerability of three prominent school choice mechanisms that have been adopted (or, considered for adoption) by some school districts in the US. We find that the highly debated Boston mechanism as well as the top trading cycles mechanism are immune to manipulation via capacities, unlike the student-optimal stable mechanism (SOSM). We show that SOSM is immune to manipulation via capacities if and only if the priority structure satisfies an acyclicity condition proposed by Ergin (Econometrica 70:2489–2497, 2002 ). On the other hand, we show that essentially no mechanism is immune to manipulation via pre-arranged matches. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:51:y:2012:i:3:p:677-693
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-011-0618-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School choice; Student-optimal stable mechanism; Top trading cycles; Boston mechanism; Acyclicity; C71; C78; C79; D61; D71; D78;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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