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

是否有公平和有效的方法分配公立学校给学生？家长能否操纵公立学校的录取程序，学区能否避免这些操纵行为？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体互动的制度设计，为这些问题提供理论答案。另一方面，实用机制设计或市场设计是经济学中的一个新兴领域，它更进一步，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额分配问题的研究，为这两个领域做出贡献。该项目包括理论和实证研究领域。这个项目的第一部分是与纽约市教育局合作，其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。这个问题中的互补性问题将通过发展公平分配理论来解决。重要的是，申诉过程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，对相关分布问题的研究将会补充到观看的文献中。该项目的第二个主要部分是与纽约市能源部和波士顿公立学校合作，重点是设计和评估系统，解决之前发现和讨论的许多理论问题。首先，纽约公立学校招生过程的评估工作将满足在经济学文献中报告设计努力的日益增长的需求。其次，一项针对波士顿学校招生过程的大型多年研究将通过模拟练习，评估一个已经实施了近20年的系统的激励机制和效率。本研究的设计和结果将代表一个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，以及经济学、运筹学、计算机科学和公共政策等学科的合作。政策制定者在这个项目范围内的参与引入了新的问题和丰富的数据集，否则经济学家无法获得；对这些数据的获取鼓励了经济学中理论经济学家、劳动经济学家和计量经济学家之间的跨领域合作。因此，该项目的跨学科方法将产生跨学科和跨领域网络的创建和维护。实用机制设计这一新兴领域为本科和研究生阶段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，向经济学和工程专业的学生开放课程，通过引入经济学家，提供新的研究机会和新的解决方案策略。S的方法来充分研究工程问题。将开发一个专门用于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，帮助从业者设计离职流程。智力优势：实用机制设计知识的扩展将代表经济学学科内的重要发展和交叉施肥。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范围。分析工具箱，它将系统地结合计算和实验经济学。第三，从设计练习中得到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有很大不同。第四，一个实用的机制设计方法提供了一个机会，用新的和丰富的数据集重新审视长期存在的问题。更广泛的影响：该项目具有直接的公共利益：它将帮助学区设计更好的学生分配机制。它还将增强政策制定者的能力。了解影响学生成绩和家长择校偏好的因素。新理论的发展和新模型和流程的设计有几个其他的应用和扩展，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.