IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2501.04241.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bundled School Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Lingbo Huang
  • Jun Zhang

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel school choice system by incorporating school bundles into the standard framework. Schools are grouped into hierarchical bundles and offered to students as options for preference reports. By listing a bundle, a student seeks admission to any school within the bundle without ranking them. This approach addresses students' difficulty in forming precise preference rankings and expands the number of schools students can report on constrained preference lists, potentially enhancing their match likelihood and welfare. We develop a modified deferred acceptance mechanism that maintains stability while accommodating bundle reports. Laboratory experiments validate our theoretical findings, showing that well-designed bundles aligned with student preferences improve welfare and matching rates without compromising fairness. Practical applications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Lingbo Huang & Jun Zhang, 2025. "Bundled School Choice," Papers 2501.04241, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2501.04241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.04241
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Artemov, Georgy, 2021. "Assignment mechanisms: Common preferences and information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    3. Erdil, Aytek & Ergin, Haluk, 2017. "Two-sided matching with indifferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 268-292.
    4. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler & Siqi Pan, 2023. "Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1447-1490, November.
    5. Hatfield, John William & Kominers, Scott Duke, 2017. "Contract design and stability in many-to-many matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 78-97.
    6. Fragiadakis, Daniel E. & Troyan, Peter, 2019. "Designing mechanisms to focalize welfare-improving strategies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 232-252.
    7. John William Hatfield & Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Westkamp, 2021. "Stability, Strategy-Proofness, and Cumulative Offer Mechanisms [Stability and Incentives for College Admissions with Budget Constraints]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1457-1502.
    8. Maxey, Tyler, 2024. "School choice with costly information acquisition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 248-268.
    9. Chen, Yan & He, YingHua, 2021. "Information acquisition and provision in school choice: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    10. Aytek Erdil & Haluk Ergin, 2008. "What's the Matter with Tie-Breaking? Improving Efficiency in School Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 669-689, June.
    11. Th`anh Nguyen & Alexander Teytelboym & Shai Vardi, 2023. "Dynamic Combinatorial Assignment," Papers 2303.13967, arXiv.org.
    12. Onur Kesten, 2010. "School Choice with Consent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1297-1348.
    13. Eric Budish, 2011. "The Combinatorial Assignment Problem: Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1061-1103.
    14. 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.
    15. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Li, Mengling, 2020. "Ties matter: Improving efficiency in course allocation by allowing ties," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 354-384.
    2. Maxey, Tyler, 2024. "School choice with costly information acquisition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 248-268.
    3. Eric Budish & Judd B. Kessler, 2022. "Can Market Participants Report Their Preferences Accurately (Enough)?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1107-1130, February.
    4. Gian Caspari & Manshu Khanna, 2021. "Non-Standard Choice in Matching Markets," Papers 2111.06815, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    5. Tayfun Sönmez, 2013. "Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(1), pages 186-219.
    6. André Schmelzer, 2016. "Single versus Multiple Randomization in Matching Mechanisms," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_08, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Mar 2017.
    7. Dur, Umut & Hammond, Robert G. & Kesten, Onur, 2021. "Sequential school choice: Theory and evidence from the field and lab," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    8. Cho, Wonki Jo & Hafalir, Isa E. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2022. "Tie-breaking and efficiency in the laboratory school choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    9. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    10. Ehlers, Lars & Hafalir, Isa E. & Yenmez, M. Bumin & Yildirim, Muhammed A., 2014. "School choice with controlled choice constraints: Hard bounds versus soft bounds," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 648-683.
    11. Romero-Medina, Antonio & Triossi, Matteo, 2024. "Strategic priority-based course allocation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    12. Kojima, Fuhito, 2013. "Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-14.
    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. Benoit Decerf, 2023. "A modification aimed at reducing the manipulability and inefficiency of the Boston school choice mechanism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(1), pages 75-101, January.
    15. Kesten, Onur & Unver, Utku, 2015. "A theory of school choice lotteries," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    16. 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.
    17. Andrew McLennan & Shino Takayama & Yuki Tamura, 2024. "An Efficient, Computationally Tractable School Choice Mechanism," Discussion Papers Series 668, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. Ding, Tingting & Schotter, Andrew, 2017. "Matching and chatting: An experimental study of the impact of network communication on school-matching mechanisms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 94-115.
    19. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2501.04241. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.