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Preference intensities and risk aversion in school choice: a laboratory experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Flip Klijn ,
Joana Pais  and
Marc Vorsatz
Flip Klijn*
Affiliation:
Institute for Economic Analysis (CSIC) and Barcelona GSE, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain
Joana Pais*
Affiliation:
ISEG/Technical University of Lisbon and UECE–Research Unit on Complexity and Economics, Rua Miguel Lupi, 20, 1249-078 Lisboa, Portugal
Marc Vorsatz*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Análisis Económico II, UNED, Paseo Senda del Rey 11, 28040 Madrid, Spain Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada (FEDEA), Calle Jorge Juan 46, 28001 Madrid, Spain
*
flip.klijn@iae.csic.es
jpais@iseg.utl.pt
mvorsatz@cee.uned.es
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Abstract

We experimentally investigate in the laboratory prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools and study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show that (a) the Gale–Shapley mechanism is more robust to changes in cardinal preferences than the Boston mechanism independently of whether individuals can submit a complete or only a restricted ranking of the schools and (b) subjects with a higher degree of risk aversion are more likely to play “safer” strategies under the Gale–Shapley but not under the Boston mechanism. Both results have important implications for enrollment planning and the possible protection risk averse agents seek.

Keywords

School choiceRisk aversionPreference intensitiesLaboratory experimentGale–Shapley mechanismBoston mechanismEfficiencyStabilityConstrained choice

JEL classification

D78: Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation C78: Bargaining Theory • Matching Theory I20: General C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 16 , Issue 1: Mechanisms and Methodology , March 2013 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-012-9329-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We are very grateful for comments and suggestions from the Editor, two referees, Eyal Ert, Bettina Klaus, Muriel Niederle, Al Roth, and the seminar audiences in Alicante, Braga, Évora, Maastricht, and Málaga. F. Klijn gratefully acknowledges a research fellowship from Harvard Business School for academic year 2009–2010 when he was visiting HBS and the first draft of the paper was written. He also gratefully acknowledges support from Plan Nacional I+D+i (ECO2008-04784 and ECO2011-29847), Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR2009-01142), and the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (CSD2006-00016) program. J. Pais gratefully acknowledges financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under project reference no. PTDC/EGE-ECO/113403/2009. M. Vorsatz gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through the project ECO2009-07530.

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