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arXiv · 2401.03598

Incontestable Assignments

Benoit Decerf·Guillaume Haeringer·Martin Van der Linden
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Abstract

In school districts where assignments are exclusively determined by a clearinghouse students can only appeal their assignment with a valid reason. An assignment is incontestable if it is appeal-proof. We study incontestability when students do not observe the other students' preferences and assignments. Incontestability is shown to be equivalent to individual rationality, non-wastefulness, and respect for top-priority sets (a weakening of justified envy). Stable mechanisms and those Pareto dominating them are incontestable, as well as the Top-Trading Cycle mechanism (but Boston is not). Under a mild consistency property, incontestable mechanisms are i-indinstiguishable (Li, 2017), and share similar incentive properties.

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econ.TH

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Benoit Decerf, Guillaume Haeringer, Martin Van der Linden. 2024-01-07. Incontestable Assignments. https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03598

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