一、讲座主题：Sophistication and Cautiousness in College Applications

Abstract:This paper tests equilibrium behavior in centralized matching markets and quantifies the welfare cost of application mistakes. We test equilibrium from a large field dataset of Chinese college admissions, by exploiting a variation in assignment mechanisms as well as the uniqueness of equilibrium predictions. We find that equilibrium behavior is not the norm. In particular, we document mistakes that arise from their non-strategic applications or pessimistic beliefs. We then estimate a parsimonious model of student decision-making that incorporates sincere and cautious types, and find that about 50% of students are sincere and more than 10% are cautious. Our model allows us to evaluate how assignment mechanisms influence the welfare of different types of students: a shift from the Immediate Acceptance mechanism to the Chinese parallel mechanism reduces the welfare loss of cautious and sincere students with high priorities.

二、主讲人：宋彦，经济学博士，毕业于加拿大麦吉尔大学，快手经济学家。

研究方向为教育和健康经济学，主要关注非理性因素如何影响教育和健康领域的决策。研究成果发表与Journal of Economic and Behavior Organization, Economics of Education Review, and Health Economics。

三、讲座时间：2022年5月25日（周三）14:00-16:30

四、讲座地点：腾讯会议：889-450-589