Preference intensities and risk aversion in school choice: A laboratory experiment

We experimentally investigate in the laboratory prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools and study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show that (a) the Gale-Shapley mechanism...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Klijn, Flip, Pais, Joana, Vorsatz, Marc
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:España
Recursos:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/125714
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/125714
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Boston mechanism
Constrained choice
Efficiency
Gale-Shapley mechanism
Laboratory experiments
Preference intensities
Risk aversion
School choice
Stability
Descrição
Resumo:We experimentally investigate in the laboratory prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools and study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show that (a) the Gale-Shapley mechanism is more robust to changes in cardinal preferences than the Boston mechanism independently of whether individuals can submit a complete or only a restricted ranking of the schools and (b) subjects with a higher degree of risk aversion are more likely to play >safer> strategies under the Gale-Shapley but not under the Boston mechanism. Both results have important implications for enrollment planning and the possible protection risk averse agents seek. © 2012 Economic Science Association.