• Do Peer Preferences Matter in School Choice Market Design? Theory and Evidence (with Natalie Cox and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson),

Abstract: Can a centralized school choice clearinghouse generate a stable matching if it does not allow students to express their preferences over both programs and peers? Theoretically, we show that a stable matching exists with peer preferences under mild conditions, but finding one via canonical mechanisms is unlikely. We show that increasing transparency about the previous cohort of students enrolling at each program induces a tâtonnement process wherein the distributions of former student types play the role of prices. We theoretically model this process and develop a test for match stability. We implement this test empirically in the college admissions market in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, where we find evidence of preferences over relative peer ability. We show that the NSW market fails to converge to stability over time. We propose a new mechanism that improves upon the current design, and we show that this mechanism generates a stable matching in the NSW market.

Paper Presented at: Brown Theory Lunch (Fall 2020), Brown Applied Micro Lunch (Spring 2021), Matching in Practice Workshop 2021*, SAET 2021*, NBER Summer Institute 2021(Education)*, LACEA-LAMES 2021, SBE 2021, EC'22*, Stony Brook 2022

*Presented by coauthor

• Strategic Thinking Through Heuristics (with G. De Clippel, S. Pankratev, K. Rozen, G Rubbini)

• Staggered Rollout for Innovation Adoption

• Keeping Experts Honest