Seminar Vol. 184

Title: Chinese College Admissions Reforms: An Empirical Evaluation

Speaker: Jiang Ming, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: October 14th, 2019      13:30-15:00

Venue: Conference Room 106B, IESR, Zhonghui Building (College of Economics)

About the speaker:

Jiang Ming is currently an Associate Professor at the Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which he joined in 2015 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Jiang Ming’s main research interests lie in the fields of experimental economics, behavioral economics, and market design. He has published in such international papers as Management Science, Games and Economic Behavior, Experimental Economics, and Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance.

Abstract:

The last twenty years have witnessed radical reforms in the Chinese college admissions system, with many provinces moving from the “sequential” (Immediate Acceptance) to various versions of the “parallel” college admissions mechanisms. We evaluate the old and new mechanisms with naturally-occurring data. Using a natural experiment in Sichuan Province which implemented a partial reform, we find that, in the year after the province adopted the parallel mechanism in its Tier 1 college admissions, students listed more colleges in their rank-ordered list, and more prestigious colleges as their top choices. Consequently, the matching outcome is more stable. Our results indicate that the parallel mechanism is less manipulable and more stable than its Immediate Acceptance predecessor.