The Welfare Effects of including Household Preferences in School Assignment Systems: Evidence from Ecuador

Gregory Elacqua, Isabel Jacas, Thomas Krussig, Carolina Méndez and Christopher Neilson

No 12625, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: We study the welfare produced by a coordinated school assignment system that is based exclusively on minimizing distance to schools, comparing the matches it produces to a system that includes household preferences using a deferred acceptance algorithm. We leverage administrative data and a mechanism change implemented in the city of Manta, Ecuador in 2021 to estimate household preferences and show that considering applicant preferences produces large welfare gains. Our counterfactual exercises show that differences across alternative assignment mechanisms are small. Survey data on household beliefs and satisfaction support these conclusions. The evidence indicates that coordinated school choice and assignment systems can have large welfare effects in developing country contexts.

Keywords: Mechanism design; centralized student assignment; school choice; Ecuador (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:12625

DOI: 10.18235/0004676

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