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De Haan, M., Gautier, PieterA., Oosterbeek, H. and van der Klaauw, B. (2023). The Performance of School Assignment Mechanisms in Practice Journal of Political Economy, 131(2):388--455.

  • Journal
    Journal of Political Economy
View publication

We use a unique combination of register and survey data from Amsterdam to investigate the performance of school assignment mechanisms in prac-tice. We find that deferred acceptance (DA) results in higher mean welfare than the adaptive Boston mechanism. This is due to students making strategic mistakes. The welfare gain of a switch from actual Boston to DA is over 90% of the welfare difference between actual Boston and optimal (proxy) Boston. Disadvantaged and lower-ability students would benefit most from such a switch.