Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice

Gabrielle Fack (1, 2) , Julien Grenet (3, 2) , Yinghua He (4)

1 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne
2 PSE - Paris School of Economics
3 PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques
4 TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics

We propose novel approaches and tests for estimating student preferences with data from school choice mechanisms, e.g., the Gale-Shapley Deferred Acceptance. Without requiring truth-telling to be the unique equilibrium, we show that the matching is (asymptotically) stable, or justified-envy-free, implying that every student is assigned to her favorite school among those she is qualified for ex post. Having validated the methods in simulations, we apply them to data from Paris and reject truth-telling but not stability. Our estimates are then used to compare the sorting and welfare effects of alternative admission criteria prescribing how schools rank students in centralized mechanisms.

Mots clés: Gale-Shapley Deferred Acceptance Mechanism; School Choice; Stable Matching; Student Preferences; Admission Criteria; C78; D47; D50; D61; I21

Domaines: Economies et finances

Gabrielle Fack, Julien Grenet, Yinghua He. Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice. 2015. ⟨halshs-01215998v2⟩