Mechanism Performance Under Strategy Advice and Sub-Optimal Play: A School Choice Experiment

57 Pages Posted: 1 Jan 2020

See all articles by Kristine Koutout

Kristine Koutout

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Andrew Dustan

Vanderbilt University - College of Arts and Science - Department of Economics

Martin Van der Linden

Emory University

Myrna Wooders

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: December 11, 2019

Abstract

We implement a laboratory experiment to study how strategy advice affects participants' decisions in a school choice game. In the strategy-proof Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism, strategy advice prompts more participants to choose the dominant strategy of truth-telling. In the Immediate Acceptance (IA) mechanism, strategy advice to implement one of two heuristic strategies that are widely recommended in the field induces participants to choose one of those strategies. We then use our data to perform exploratory analyses on how the variation in the proportion of participants who choose sub-optimal strategies affects mechanism performance.

Keywords: school choice, experiment, strategy advice, mechanism design, sub-optimal play

JEL Classification: C78, C92, D82

Suggested Citation

Koutout, Kristine and Dustan, Andrew and Van der Linden, Martin and Wooders, Myrna, Mechanism Performance Under Strategy Advice and Sub-Optimal Play: A School Choice Experiment (December 11, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3502416 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3502416

Kristine Koutout (Contact Author)

Stanford Graduate School of Business ( email )

Andrew Dustan

Vanderbilt University - College of Arts and Science - Department of Economics ( email )

Box 1819 Station B
Nashville, TN 37235
United States

Martin Van der Linden

Emory University ( email )

201 Dowman Drive
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

Myrna Wooders

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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