American Economic Review Vol. 99 No. 5 2009

Strategy-proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match

Atila Abdulkadiroğlu¹; Parag Abishek Pathak²; Alvin E. Roth³

¹ Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. · ² Society of Fellows and MIT, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142. · ³ Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 and Harvard Business School, Boston, MA 02163.

Abstract

The design of the New York City (NYC) high school match involved trade-offs among efficiency, stability, and strategy-proofness that raise new theoretical questions. We analyze a model with indifferences—ties—in school preferences. Simulations with field data and the theory favor breaking indifferences the same way at every school—single tiebreaking—in a student-proposing deferred acceptance mechanism. Any inefficiency associated with a realized tiebreaking cannot be removed without harming student incentives. Finally, we empirically document the extent of potential efficiency loss associated with strategy-proofness and stability, and direct attention to some open questions.

DOI

10.1257/aer.99.5.1954

Volume

99

Issue

5

Pages

1954-1978

Language

en

Sources

crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex

Cite

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