Juan Escobar, Universidad de Chile

Paper: Search and Information in Centralized School Choice System

Abstract: Centralized school assignment mechanisms play an important role in educational policy worldwide. In these systems, families face the non-trivial task of discovering and ranking schools. We evaluate the impact of information protocols on equilibrium search behavior and social welfare. We study a large market model in which students are assigned to schools using the deferred acceptance algorithm. We show that full transparency about the number of seats in the market is suboptimal. We also examine the effects of disclosing information about schools that are likely to be attractive to students, showing that transparency regarding top choices reduces congestion and increases welfare. Our analysis provides new insights for market designers as information interventions may subtly affect behavior and welfare.