American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Simple Manipulations in School Choice Mechanisms
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 202–33)
Abstract
Market design mechanisms are often required to be strategy proof, ensuring that no misreporting is profitable. This, however, may be overly restrictive: Real-world participants may be unable to engage in complex misreporting. In the context of school choice, this paper proposes that mechanisms ought to be immune only to certain "simple" misreports. While no strategy-proof mechanism Pareto improves on the deferred acceptance (DA) mechanism, we find one under our weaker requirement: Kesten's (2010) efficiency adjusted DA (EADA). By extending our criterion to also prevent simple "collective" misreports, we obtain characterizations of Kesten's mechanism. These insights contribute to practical market design.Citation
Shirakawa, Ryo. 2025. "Simple Manipulations in School Choice Mechanisms." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 17 (4): 202–33. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20230116Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C78 Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
- D47 Market Design
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- I21 Analysis of Education