Working Paper: NBER ID: w29600
Authors: Camille Terrier; Parag A. Pathak; Kevin Ren
Abstract: Countries and cities around the world increasingly rely on centralized systems to assign students to schools. Two algorithms, deferred acceptance (DA) and immediate acceptance (IA), are widespread. The latter is often criticized for harming disadvantaged families who fail to get access to popular schools. This paper investigates the effect of the national ban of the IA mechanism in England in 2008. Before the ban, 49 English local authorities used DA and 16 used IA. All IA local authorities switched to DA afterwards, giving rise to a cross-market difference-in-differences research design. Our results show that the elimination of IA reduces measures of school quality for low-SES students more than high-SES students. After the ban, low-SES students attend schools with lower value-added and more disadvantaged and low-achieving peers. This effect is primarily driven by a decrease in low-SES admissions at selective schools. Our findings point to an unintended consequence of the IA to DA transition: by encouraging high-SES parents to report their preferences truthfully, DA increases competition for top schools, which crowds out low-SES students.
Keywords: School admissions; Deferred acceptance; Immediate acceptance; Socioeconomic status; Educational outcomes
JEL Codes: D47; I20
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Immediate Acceptance (IA) (Y20) | School Quality Measures for Low SES Students (I24) |
| Transition from IA to DA (O39) | Access to Quality Education for Low SES Students (I24) |
| Transition from IA to DA (O39) | Low SES Admissions at Selective Schools (I24) |
| Transition from IA to DA (O39) | Competition for Top Schools (I23) |
| Competition for Top Schools (I23) | Low SES Students with Peers with Lower Baseline Test Scores (I24) |
| Transition from IA to DA (O39) | Inequalities in School Access (I24) |