Matching and chatting: An experimental study of the impact of network communication on school-matching mechanisms

While, in theory, the school matching problem is a static non-cooperative one-shot game, in reality the “matching game” is played by parents who choose their strategies after consulting or chatting with other parents in their social networks. In this paper we compare the performance of the Boston an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGames and economic behavior Vol. 103; pp. 94 - 115
Main Authors Ding, Tingting, Schotter, Andrew
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Inc 01.05.2017
Subjects
Chat
Matching
Mechanism design
Networks
School choice
Matching
Networks
School choice
C78
Mechanism design
Chat
C91
C72
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Summary:While, in theory, the school matching problem is a static non-cooperative one-shot game, in reality the “matching game” is played by parents who choose their strategies after consulting or chatting with other parents in their social networks. In this paper we compare the performance of the Boston and the Gale–Shapley mechanisms in the presence of chatting through social networks. Our results indicate that allowing subjects to chat has an important impact on the likelihood that subjects change their strategies and also on the welfare and stability of the outcomes determined by the mechanism. •We compare the Boston and the Gale–Shapley mechanisms in the presence of chatting through social networks.•Allowing subjects to chat has an important impact on the likelihood that subjects change their strategies.•Chatting also affects the welfare and stability of the outcomes determined by the mechanism.
ISSN:0899-8256
1090-2473
DOI:10.1016/j.geb.2016.02.004