Affirmative actions: the Boston mechanism case

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.02.014

We consider three popular affirmative action policies in school choice: quota-based, priority-based, and reserve-based affirmative actions. The Boston mechanism (BM) is responsive to the latter two policies in that a stronger priority-based or reserve-based affirmative action makes some minority student better off. However, a stronger quota-based affirmative action may yield a Pareto inferior outcome for the minority under the BM. These positive results disappear once we look for a stronger welfare consequence on the minority or focus on BM equilibrium outcomes.