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Describing Deferred Acceptance and Strategyproofness to Participants: Experimental Analysis

Yannai A. Gonczarowski, Ori Heffetz, Guy Ishai, Clayton Thomas

Abstract

We conduct an incentivized lab experiment to test participants' ability to understand the DA matching mechanism and the strategyproofness property, conveyed in different ways. We find that while many participants can (using a novel GUI) learn DA's mechanics and calculate its outcomes, such understanding does not imply understanding of strategyproofness (as measured by specially designed tests). However, a novel menu description of strategyproofness conveys this property significantly better than other treatments. While behavioral effects are small on average, participants with levels of strategyproofness understanding above a certain threshold play the classical dominant strategy at very high rates.

Describing Deferred Acceptance and Strategyproofness to Participants: Experimental Analysis

Abstract

We conduct an incentivized lab experiment to test participants' ability to understand the DA matching mechanism and the strategyproofness property, conveyed in different ways. We find that while many participants can (using a novel GUI) learn DA's mechanics and calculate its outcomes, such understanding does not imply understanding of strategyproofness (as measured by specially designed tests). However, a novel menu description of strategyproofness conveys this property significantly better than other treatments. While behavioral effects are small on average, participants with levels of strategyproofness understanding above a certain threshold play the classical dominant strategy at very high rates.
Paper Structure (71 sections, 79 figures, 7 tables)

This paper contains 71 sections, 79 figures, 7 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Experimental Design
  3. Setting (All Treatments)
  4. Descriptions (by Treatment)
  5. SP Property vs. ranking advice.
  6. Comparisons of treatment descriptions.
  7. Training Rounds and Training Score (by Treatment)
  8. DA Mechanics training rounds.
  9. SP Property training rounds.
  10. Null training rounds.
  11. Real Rounds and Ranking Behavior (All Treatments)
  12. Information and feedback.
  13. Strategyproofness-Understanding Test (All Treatments)
  14. Exit Questions and Cognitive Score (All Treatments)
  15. Results
  16. ...and 56 more sections

Figures (79)

  • Figure 1: Overview of experimental flow
  • Figure 2: Charts illustrating to participants the overall allocation process
  • Figure 3: Trad-DA and Textbook-SP
  • Figure 4: Menu-DA and Menu-SP
  • Figure 5: Main components of DA Mechanics training
  • ...and 74 more figures