American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Correlation Neglect in Student-to-School Matching
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 16,
no. 3, August 2024
(pp. 1–42)
Abstract
We present results from three experiments containing incentivized school choice scenarios. In these scenarios, we vary whether schools' assessments of students are based on a common priority (inducing correlation in admissions decisions) or are based on independent assessments (eliminating correlation in admissions decisions). The quality of students' application strategies declines in the presence of correlated admissions: application strategies become substantially more aggressive and fail to include attractive "safety" options. We provide a battery of tests suggesting that this phenomenon is at least partially driven by correlation neglect, and we discuss implications for the design and deployment of student-to-school matching mechanisms.Citation
Rees-Jones, Alex, Ran Shorrer, and Chloe Tergiman. 2024. "Correlation Neglect in Student-to-School Matching." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 16 (3): 1–42. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200407Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C78 Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
- C91 Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment