ERIC Number: ED604522
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Feb
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Correlation Neglect in Student-to-School Matching. NBER Working Paper No. 26734
Rees-Jones, Alex; Shorrer, Ran; Tergiman, Chloe J.
National Bureau of Economic Research
A growing body of evidence suggests that decision-makers fail to account for correlation in signals that they receive. We study the relevance of this mistake in students' interactions with school-choice matching mechanisms. In a lab experiment presenting simple and incentivized school-choice scenarios, we find that subjects tend to follow optimal application strategies when schools' admissions decisions are determined independently. However, when schools rely on a common priority--inducing correlation in admissions--decision making suffers: application strategies become substantially more aggressive and fail to include attractive "safety" options. We document that this pattern holds even within-subject, with significant fractions of participants applying to different programs when correlation is varied but all payoff-relevant elements are held constant. We provide a battery of tests suggesting that this phenomenon is at least partially driven by correlation neglect, and we discuss implications that arise for the design and deployment of student-to-school matching mechanisms. [Ran Shorrer was supported by a grant from the United States--Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF grant 2016015).]
National Bureau of Economic Research. 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398. Tel: 617-588-0343; Web site: http://www.nber.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A

Direct link
