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School choice under transferable capacities

Project description

Improving admissions to public schools

More than two thirds of secondary students in the majority of OECD countries attend public school. Since admission is open and not governed by market laws, careful planning of seat allocation is necessary and should prioritise the welfare of the students. The Gale–Shapley algorithm (also known as the deferred acceptance algorithm) can be used to match students with schools, but the welfare loss is considerable because capacities are assumed to be rigid. The EU-funded SchoolFlex project will plan a student-optimal stable matching mechanism under transferable capacities. The project will study the feasibility of the priority system and will evaluate the welfare benefits of transferable capacities.

Objective

"Public schools are the largest providers of education in many countries. In the vast majority of the OECD countries, more than two third of secondary students were educated in public schools in 2016. The ""non-market"" feature of admissions to this type of schools calls for a careful design of how to allocate seats to students. In recent decades, school choice has appeared as a promising alternative. Centralized public school choice is a system that allocates public school seats to students by taking into account their preferences over various schools. Each school has a fixed capacity and a priority order that is determined by law. Stability --- essentially about respecting priorities --- and efficiency --- maximizing students' welfare --- have been the guiding principles for public school choice design.

Yet, it is impossible to satisfy both principles. However, the Gale-Shapley student proposing deferred acceptance is a second best solution, being the student-optimal stable (constraint) matching mechanism. Nevertheless, the welfare loss is considerable. I observed that this is in part due to the fact that capacities are assumed to be rigid. I interpret them as (class size) ideal capacities because, in practice, schools are flexible so that they can add a few seats to their reported capacities. In theory, this flexibility can be exploited to mitigate the welfare loss in deferred acceptance. The flexibility is subjected to not adding more seat to the whole system, so it is a transfer of capacities.

This project aims at designing a student-optimal stable matching mechanism under transferable capacities. More specifically, I will study such a mechanism and empirically evaluate the welfare gains of transferable capacities. I will also study the feasibility of stability and full efficiency. Such a mechanism will help improve the assignment of public school seats to students in many cities around the world, including Boston, many cities in England and Hungary."

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITE DE LAUSANNE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 191 149,44
Address
QUARTIER UNIL CENTRE - BATIMENT UNICENTRE
1015 LAUSANNE
Switzerland

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Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Vaud
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 191 149,44
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