CAREER: Theoretical and Practical Mechanism Design With an Emphasis on Public School Choice

有没有一种公平而有效的方式在学生中分配公立学校？家长是否可以操纵公立学校的招生过程，学区是否能够避免这些操纵努力？学区能否在为家长提供选择的同时，保持学校的种族和民族平衡？机制设计理论试图通过研究个人互动的制度设计来为这些问题提供理论上的答案。另一方面，经济学中的一个新兴领域--实用机制设计或市场设计，则更进一步，为复杂的现实问题设计和实施机制。本项目旨在通过对公立学校学位分配问题的研究，为这两个领域做出贡献。该项目包括理论研究和经验研究两个领域。该项目的第一部分是与纽约市教育局的合作，重点是分配中的受控选择限制问题以及这些限制所产生的结果的吸引力问题。将通过发展公平分配理论来解决这一问题的互补性问题。重要的是，上诉程序的设计将产生一类涉及混合模型的新问题，并考虑设计效率问题。此外，对相关分配问题的研究将增加关于匹配的文献。该项目的第二个主要部分，涉及与纽约能源部和波士顿公立学校的合作，专注于系统的设计和评估，以解决之前发现和讨论的许多理论问题。首先，对纽约公立学校招生过程的评估工作将满足越来越多的需要，即在经济学文献中报告设计努力。其次，对波士顿学校招生过程进行的一项为期多年的重要研究，将通过模拟演习来评估这一已实施了近20年的制度的激励机制和效率。这项研究的设计和结果将代表从机制设计理论到其应用的端到端过程，并将推动政策研究和实践。该项目的成功完成需要高度跨学科的方法，包括智力和社会，并跨经济学、运筹学、计算机科学和公共政策等学科进行合作。政策制定者在该项目范围内的参与引入了新的问题，并获得了经济学家原本无法获得的丰富数据集；获得这些数据鼓励了经济学内部各个领域的合作，包括理论经济学家、劳动经济学家和计量经济学家之间的合作。因此，这一项目的跨学科方法将产生一个跨学科和跨领域的网络的建立和维护。实用机制设计领域的兴起为本科生和研究生水平的跨学科教育以及从业人员和公务员的培训提供了巨大的机会。一个目标是将这一前沿研究整合到经济学课程和博士课程中，向经济学和工程学学生开放课程，通过介绍经济学家对深入研究的工程问题的方法，提供新的研究机会和新的解决策略。将开发一个专门培训学区公务员的网站；它将为与择校有关的问题提供一个论坛，提供全美择校计划的数据库，并提供免费软件，帮助从业者设计任务流程。智力优势：扩大实用机制设计方面的知识将是经济学学科内的一项重要发展和交叉交流。首先，实践机制设计练习引入了新的理论问题和政策问题。该项目将通过在理论背景下研究这些问题来推动机制设计理论的前沿。其次，在现实市场中设计和实施机制需要对制度细节进行系统研究；当这些细节超出经济学家的界限时。分析工具箱，它将系统地结合计算和实验经济学。第三，从设计实践中得出的结果和经验教训将发表在科学期刊上，从而促进设计文献的创作，其重点将与理论文献显著不同。第四，实用的机制设计方法提供了用新的和丰富的数据集重新审视长期存在的问题的机会。更广泛的影响：这个项目有一个直接的公共利益：它将帮助学区设计更好的学生分配机制。它还将提升政策制定者的地位。了解影响学生学业成绩和家长择校偏好的因素。新理论的发展和新模式和流程的设计还有其他几个应用和扩展，包括政府或公共部门的劳动力市场。

Is there a fair and efficient way of allocating public schools among pupils? Can parents manipulate public school admissions processes, and are school districts able to avoid these manipulation efforts? Can school districts maintain racial and ethnic balance at schools while providing parents with choice? The theory of mechanism design attempts to provide theoretical answers to such questions by studying the design of institutions through which individuals interact. Practical mechanism design or market design, a rising field in economics, on the other hand, goes a step further and designs and implements mechanisms for complicated real-life problems. This project aims to contribute to these two fields through the study of problems of allocation ofstudent places in public schools. The project encompasses both theoretical and empirical areas of research. The first segment of this project, a collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, focuses upon the issue of controlled choice constraints in allocation and the appeal of outcomes resulting from those constraints. The problem of complementarity in this issue will be addressed through the development of a theory of fair allocation. The design of an appeals process will, importantly, yield a new class of problems involving hybrid models and consider the problem of design efficiency. Further, research on related distributive issues will add to the literature on atching.The second major segment of this project, involving collaboration with the NYC DOE and Boston Public Schools, focusses upon the design and evaluation of systems that address many of the theoretical problems discovered and discussed prior. First, an evaluation exercise for the public schools admissions process in New York will meet an increasing need to report design efforts in economics literature. Second, a major multi-year study of the Boston schools admissions process will assess the incentives and efficiency of a system that has been in place for nearly two decades through simulation exercises. The design and results of this study will represent both an end-to-endprocess, from mechanism design theory to its application, and will advance policy research and practice.The successful completion of the project requires a highly interdisciplinary approach, both intellectual and social, with collaboration across disciplines of economics, operations research, computer science, and public policy. The participation of policy makers within the scope of this project introduces new questions and access to rich data sets otherwise unavailable to economists; access to such data encourages collaboration across fields within economics, among theoretical economists, labor economists and econometricians. The interdisciplinary approach of this projecttherefore will yield the creation and maintenance of a network across disciplines and across fields.The rising field of practical mechanism design provides immense opportunity for interdisciplinary education at the undergraduate and graduate levels and for the training of practitioners and public servants. One objective is to integrate this frontier research into the economics curriculum and PhD program, with courses open to economics and engineering students that provide new research opportunities and new solution strategies by introducing the economist.s approach to well-studied engineering problems. A website dedicated to the training of public servants in school districts will be developed; it will provide a forum for issues related to school choice, offer a database of school choice plans throughout the US, and offer free software that will aid practitioners in designing dmissions processesIntellectual Merit: The expansion of knowledge on practical mechanism design would represent an important development and cross-fertilization within the discipline of economics. First, the practical mechanism design exercise introduces new theoretical problems and policy questions. The project will push the frontiers of the theory of mechanism design by studying these problems in a theoretical context. Second, the design and implementation of mechanisms in real-life markets requires a systematic study of institutional details; when these details expand beyond the boundaries of economists. analytical toolbox, it will systematically incorporate computational andexperimental economics. Third, the results and the lessons derived from the design exercises will be published in scientific journals, thereby fostering the creation of a design literature, whose focus will differ significantly from the theoretical literature. Fourth, a practical mechanism design approach offers an opportunity to revisit long-standing questions with new and rich data sets. Broader Impact: This project has a direct public benefit: it will help school districts design better student assignment mechanisms. It will also enhance policy makers. understanding of factors that effect student achievement and parental preferences in school choice. The development of new theories and design of new models and processes has several other applications and extensions, including government or public-sector labor markets.