- Title
- Heterogeneous Beliefs and School Choice Mechanisms
- Author(s)
- Adam Kapor Adam Kapor (Columbia University)
- Christopher A. Neilson Christopher Neilson (Princeton University)
- Seth D. Zimmerman Seth Zimmerman (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)
- Abstract
- This paper studies how welfare outcomes in centralized school choice depend on the assignment mechanism when participants are not fully informed. Using a survey of school choice participants in a strategic setting, we show that beliefs about admissions chances differ from rational expectations values and predict choice behavior. To quantify the welfare costs of belief errors, we estimate a model of school choice that incorporates subjective beliefs. We evaluate the equilibrium effects of switching to a strategy-proof deferred acceptance algorithm, and of improving households' belief accuracy. Allowing for belief errors reverses the welfare comparison to favor the deferred acceptance algorithm.
- Creation Date
- 2017-04
- Section URL ID
- IRS
- Paper Number
- 612
- URL
- https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp015d86p2856/3/612.pdf
- File Function
- Jel
- I21, I28
- Keyword(s)
- Suppress
- false
- Series
- 1