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The structure of priority in the school choice problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2019

Conal Duddy Open the ORCID record for Conal Duddy [Opens in a new window]
Conal Duddy*
Affiliation:
J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics and the Whitaker Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland
*
Email: conal.duddy@gmail.com
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Abstract

In a school choice problem, each school has a priority ordering over the set of students. These orderings depend on criteria such as whether a student lives within walking distance or has a sibling at the school. A priority ordering provides a ranking of students but nothing more. I argue that this information is sufficient when priority is based on merit but not when priority is based on criteria such as walking distance. I propose an extended formulation of the problem wherein a ‘priority matrix’, indicating which criteria are satisfied by each student-school pair, replaces the usual priority orderings.

Keywords

School choicematchingpriority orderingjustified envy

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Type
Article
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Economics & Philosophy , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 361 - 381
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© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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