Affirmative action through minority reserves: An experimental study on school choice

Minority reserves are an affirmative action policy proposed by Hafalir et al. (2013) in the context of school choice. In a laboratory experiment, we find that adding minority reserves to the GS and TTC mechanisms has positive effects on stability but is quite disappointing in terms of efficiency. Also GS induces higher rates of truth-telling by minority students and thus outclasses TTC.The first author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014-SGR-1064), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica 2013–2016 (ECO2014-59302-P), and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2011-0075). He also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Fundación Ramón Areces. The second author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under project reference no. PTDC/EGE-ECO/113403/2009. The third author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Fundación Ramón Areces and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ECO2012–31985)Peer Reviewe