Describing Deferred Acceptance and Strategyproofness to Participants: Experimental Analysis
General Economics
2024-09-30 v1 Computer Science and Game Theory
Economics
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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.18166,
title = {Describing Deferred Acceptance and Strategyproofness to Participants: Experimental Analysis},
author = {Yannai A. Gonczarowski and Ori Heffetz and Guy Ishai and Clayton Thomas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.18166},
year = {2024}
}