Working Paper: NBER ID: w24588
Authors: Caterina Calsamiglia; Chao Fu; Maia Gell
Abstract: We model household choice of schools under the Boston mechanism (BM) and develop a new method, applicable to a broad class of mechanisms, to fully solve the choice problem even if it is infeasible via the traditional method. We estimate the joint distribution of household preferences and sophistication types using administrative data from Barcelona. Counterfactual policy analyses show that a change from BM to the Deferred Acceptance mechanism would decrease average welfare by 1,020 euros, while a change to the top trading cycles mechanism would increase average welfare by 460 euros.
Keywords: School Choice; Boston Mechanism; Deferred Acceptance; Top Trading Cycles; Household Preferences
JEL Codes: I20; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Boston mechanism (BM) (L64) | average household welfare (I30) |
| deferred acceptance mechanism (DA) (C78) | average household welfare (I30) |
| top trading cycles mechanism (TTC) (E32) | average household welfare (I30) |