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 | Dauphine, A409 |
Fairness in Matching Markets: Experimental Evidence
We investigate fairness preferences over two matching mechanisms using laboratory and vignette experiments. Participants can choose between the Boston mechanism (BOS) and the serial dictatorship (SD) mechanism to allocate school seats. In our setup, BOS, which is not strategy-proof, generates justified envy while the strategy-proof SD ensures envy-freeness. We find that fairness preferences for SD are stronger when priorities are determined by merit rather than luck, and that a majority prefers BOS when priorities are based on luck. Moreover, even with merit-based priorities, many participants still prefer BOS. An analysis of the underlying motives indicates that support for SD is mainly driven by concerns about envy-freeness rather than strategy-proofness, whereas support for BOS reflects a belief in entitlements earned through strategic decision-making. Finally, directly asking respondents about the most important design principles reveals that they value envy-freeness nearly as much as efficiency, while strategy-proofness is considered less important.
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