Theme：Bundled School Choice

Guest Speaker：Jun Zhang (Nanjing Audit University)

Time：October 24th, 2025(Friday)，13:00-14:30 pm

Venue：Room 318, Business School Building

Organizer：The Department of Economics 

Guest Bio:

  Jun Zhang, Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Nanjing Audit University, specializes in game theory and market design theory. In recent years, he has published multiple papers in international journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Games and Economic Behavior, and Economic Theory. His research has received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China's Excellent Young Scholars Program and Young Scholars Program, as well as the Wu Jiapai Support Program of the China Society for Information Economics.

Synopsis：

  This paper proposes a novel school choice system where schools are grouped into hierarchical bundles and offered to students as options for preference reports. By listing a bundle, a student seeks admission to any school within it without ranking the schools. This approach helps students who struggle to rank schools precisely and expands options on limited preference lists, potentially improving match outcomes. We design a modified deferred acceptance mechanism to handle bundle reports while preserving stability. Laboratory experiments support our theory, showing that well-constructed bundles aligned with student preferences enhance welfare and match rates without compromising fairness. Practical applications are discussed.