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Obvious Mistakes in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Ran I. Shorrer

    (Pennsylvania State University, United States of America)

  • Sandor Sovago

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract
In a centralized marketplace that was designed to be simple, we identify participants whose choices are dominated. Using administrative data from Hungary, we show that college applicants make obvious mistakes: they forgo the free opportunity to receive a tuition waiver worth thousands of dollars. At least 10 percent of the applicants made such mistakes in 2013. Costly mistakes have externalities: they transfer tuition waivers from high- to low-socioeconomic status students, and increase the number of students attending college. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying mistakes, we exploit a reform that substantially increased the selectivity of admission with financial aid in some fields of study. Increased admission selectivity raises the likelihood of making obvious mistakes, especially among high-socioeconomic status and low-achieving applicants. Our results suggest that mistakes are more common when their expected cost is lower. Still, the average cost of a mistake in 2013 was 114-365 dollars.

Suggested Citation

  • Ran I. Shorrer & Sandor Sovago, 2017. "Obvious Mistakes in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-107/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20170107
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    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/17107.pdf
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    2. Vincent Meisner & Jonas von Wangenheim, 2022. "Loss aversion in strategy-proof school-choice mechanisms," Papers 2207.14666, arXiv.org.
    3. Basteck, Christian & Mantovani, Marco, 2018. "Cognitive ability and games of school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 156-183.
    4. Ashlagi, Itai & Gonczarowski, Yannai A., 2018. "Stable matching mechanisms are not obviously strategy-proof," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 405-425.
    5. Meisner, Vincent, 2021. "Report-Dependent Utility and Strategy-Proofness," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 289, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Avinatan Hassidim & Assaf Romm & Ran I. Shorrer, 2021. "The Limits of Incentives in Economic Matching Procedures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 951-963, February.
    7. Meisner, Vincent & von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2019. "School Choice and Loss Aversion," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 208, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    8. Meisner, Vincent & von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2023. "Loss aversion in strategy-proof school-choice mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    9. Hassidim, Avinatan & Romm, Assaf & Shorrer, Ran I., 2019. "Contracts are not salaries in the hidden-substitutes domain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 40-42.
    10. Chen, Li & Sebastián Pereyra, Juan, 2019. "Self-selection in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 59-81.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    College admissions; dominated strategies; market design; obvious misrepresentation; school choice; strategy-proof;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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