By the 2008/09 school year the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) abolished binding school catchment … areas (SCAs) in all municipalities. The reform has been controversial and it was feared that school choice would increase …

We investigate the effects of public school open enrolment, which allows students to enroll in any public school with … whose catchment school is locally top-ranked according to test scores, greater choice is of no direct benefit; however …, students whose catchment school is locally lowest-ranked earn higher scores when they have access to better local schools …

Unsophisticated applicants can be at a disadvantage under manipulable and hence strategically demanding school choice … admitted at a particular school, and hence may level the playing field between applicants who differ in their cognitive ability …

We take school admission mechanisms to the lab to test whether the widely-used manipulable Boston … the case: lower ability participants receive lower payoffs and are over-represented at the worst school. Under the …

markets with significant choice among public and private schools. Our model accounts for the endogeneity of school fees and … the characteristics of students attending the school. As expected, central determinants of school choice are the distance … to school, school fees, and the characteristics of peers. Families are willing to pay on average between 75% and 115% of …