The day care assignment: a dynamic matching problem

Abstract

We study the problem of centralized allocation of children to public day care centers, illustrated by the case of Denmark. Our framework applies to problems of dynamic matching in which there is entry and exit of agents over time; for example, the school choice problem once student mobility is taken into account. We show that there does not exist any mechanism that is both stable and strategy-proof. We also show that the well-known Top Trading Cycles mechanism is neither Pareto efficient nor strategy-proof. Finally, a mechanism in which parents sequentially choose menus of schools is both strategy-proof and Pareto efficient.