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  3. American Economic Review
  4. September 2010
  5. Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study

  • Caterina Calsamiglia
  • Guillaume Haeringer
  • Flip Klijn
American Economic Review
vol. 100, no. 4, September 2010
(pp. 1860–74)
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Abstract

The literature on school choice assumes that families can submit a preference list over all the schools they want to be assigned to. However, in many real-life instances families are only allowed to submit a list containing a limited number of schools. Subjects' incentives are drastically affected, as more individuals manipulate their preferences. Including a safety school in the constrained list explains most manipulations. Competitiveness across schools plays an important role. Constraining choices increases segregation and affects the stability and efficiency of the final allocation. Remarkably, the constraint reduces significantly the proportion of subjects playing a dominated strategy (JEL D82, I21 )

Citation

Calsamiglia, Caterina, Guillaume Haeringer, and Flip Klijn. 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study." American Economic Review, 100 (4): 1860–74. DOI: 10.1257/aer.100.4.1860

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D82 Asymmetric and Private Information
  • I21 Analysis of Education