Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design / Efficiency and fair access in Kindergarten allocation policy design

(VLID)339685

Efficiency and fair access in Kindergarten allocation policy design

We examine Kindergarten allocation practices in an Estonian municipality, Harku. Based on our recommendations, the allocation mechanism in Harku was redesigned in 2016. The new mechanism produces a child-optimal stable matching, with priorities primarily based on siblings and distance. We evaluate seven policy designs based on 2016 admission data in order to understand efficiency and fairness trade-offs. In addition to the descriptive data analysis, we conduct a counter-factual policy comparison and sensitivity analysis using computational experiments with generated preferences. We fix the allocation mechanism to be the child-oriented Deferred-Acceptance algorithm, but we vary how the priorities are created by altering sibling and distance factors. Different lotteries are included for breaking ties. We find that different ways of considering the same priority factors can have a significant aggregate effect on the allocation. Additionally, we survey a dozen special features that can create significant challenges (both theoretical and practical) in redesigning the allocation mechanism in Estonian Kindergartens, and potentially elsewhere as well

Using mixed methods to construct and analyze a participatory agent-based model of a complex Zimbabwean agro-pastoral system.

Complex social-ecological systems can be difficult to study and manage. Simulation models can facilitate exploration of system behavior under novel conditions, and participatory modeling can involve stakeholders in developing appropriate management processes. Participatory modeling already typically involves qualitative structural validation of models with stakeholders, but with increased data and more sophisticated models, quantitative behavioral validation may be possible as well. In this study, we created a novel agent-based-model applied to a specific context: Zimbabwean non-governmental organization the Muonde Trust has been collecting data on their agro-pastoral system for the last 35 years and had concerns about land-use planning and the effectiveness of management interventions in the face of climate change. We collaboratively created an agent-based model of their system using their data archive, qualitatively calibrating it to the observed behavior of the real system without tuning any parameters to match specific quantitative outputs. We then behaviorally validated the model using quantitative community-based data and conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine the relative impact of underlying parameter assumptions, Indigenous management interventions, and different rainfall variation scenarios. We found that our process resulted in a model which was successfully structurally validated and sufficiently realistic to be useful for Muonde researchers as a discussion tool. The model was inconsistently behaviorally validated, however, with some model variables matching field data better than others. We observed increased model system instability due to increasing variability in underlying drivers (rainfall), and also due to management interventions that broke feedbacks between the components of the system. Interventions that smoothed year-to-year variation rather than exaggerating it tended to improve sustainability. The Muonde trust has used the model to successfully advocate to local leaders for changes in land-use planning policy that will increase the sustainability of their system

Validation of climate model-inferred regional temperature change for late-glacial Europe

Comparisons of climate model hindcasts with independent proxy data are essential for assessing model performance in non-analogue situations. However, standardized palaeoclimate data sets for assessing the spatial pattern of past climatic change across continents are lacking for some of the most dynamic episodes of Earth’s recent past. Here we present a new chironomid-based palaeotemperature dataset designed to assess climate model hindcasts of regional summer temperature change in Europe during the late-glacial and early Holocene. Latitudinal and longitudinal patterns of inferred temperature change are in excellent agreement with simulations by the ECHAM-4 model, implying that atmospheric general circulation models like ECHAM-4 can successfully predict regionally diverging temperature trends in Europe, even when conditions differ significantly from present. However, ECHAM-4 infers larger amplitudes of change and higher temperatures during warm phases than our palaeotemperature estimates, suggesting that this and similar models may overestimate past and potentially also future summer temperature changes in Europe