Some local authorities have resorted to random allocation of school places, which at least is scrupulously fair.

ECONOMIST: Ministers want to make the great schools game harder to play

In Northamptonshire, three schools are now using random allocation within a system of fair banding to try to achieve a comprehensive intake.

BBC: Pupils told their school places

Iain Chalmers, a founder of both the Campbell Collaboration and its older and better established medical sibling, the Cochrane Collaboration, identifies an apparent example of random allocation in a study carried out in 1927 of how to persuade people to turn out to vote in elections.

ECONOMIST: Social science: Try it and see | The