4,525 research outputs found
Truncation strategies in two-sided matching markets: Theory and experiment
We investigate strategic behavior in a centralized matching clearinghouse based on the Gale–Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm. To do so, we conduct a laboratory experiment to test the degree to which agents strategically misrepresent their preferences by submitting a “truncation” of their true preferences. Our experimental design uses a restricted environment in which a particular form of truncation is always a best response. We find that subjects do not truncate their preferences more often when truncation is profitable. They do, however, truncate their preferences less often when truncation is dangerous – that is, when there is a risk of “over-truncating” and remaining unmatched. Our findings suggest that behavioral insights can play an important role in the field of market design
Manipulability in Matching Markets: Conflict and Coincidence of Interests
We study comparative statics of manipulations by women in the men-proposing deferred acceptance mechanism in the two-sided one-to-one marriage market. We prove that if a group of women employs truncation strategies or weakly successfully manipulates, then all other women weakly benefit and all men are weakly harmed. We show that our results do not appropriately generalize to the many-to-one college admissions model.matching, deferred acceptance, manipulability, welfare
Implementing quotas in university admissions: An experimental analysis
Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions, which first allocates seats in the quota for top-grade students before allocating all other seats among remaining applicants. The second is a modied version of the student-proposing deferred acceptance (SDA) algorithm, which simultaneously allocates seats in all quotas. Our main result is that the current procedure, designed to give top-grade students an advantage, actually harms them, as students often fail to grasp the strategic issues involved. The modified SDA algorithm significantly improves the matching for top-grade students and could thus be a valuable tool for redesigning university admissions in Germany.College admissions, experiment, quotas, matching; Gale-Shapley mechanism, Boston mechanism
Implementing quotas in university admissions: An experimental analysis
Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions, which first allocates seats in the quota for top-grade students before allocating all other seats among remaining applicants. The second is a modified version of the student-proposing deferred acceptance (SDA) algorithm, which simultaneously allocates seats in all quotas. Our main result is that the current procedure, designed to give top-grade students an advantage, actually harms them, as students often fail to grasp the strategic issues involved. The modified SDA algorithm significantly improves the matching for top-grade students and could thus be a valuable tool for redesigning university admissions in Germany. --college admissions,experiment,quotas,matching,Gale-Shapley mechanism,Boston mechanism
Backward Unraveling over Time: The Evolution of Strategic Behavior in the Entry-Level British Medical Labor Markets
This paper studies an adaptive artificial agent model using a genetic algorithm to analyze how a population of decision-makers learns to coordinate on the selection of an equilibrium or a social convention in a two-sided matching game. In the contexts of centralized and decentralized entry-level labor markets, evolution and adjustment paths of unraveling are explored using this model in an environment inspired by the Kagel and Roth (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2000) experimental study. As an interesting result, it is demonstrated that stability need not be required for the success of a matching mechanism under incomplete information in the long run.Genetic algorithms, linear programming matching, stability, two-sided matching, unraveling
Acyclicity and singleton cores in matching markets
This paper analyzes the role of acyclicity in singleton cores. We show that the absence of simultaneous cycles is a sufficient condition for the existence of singleton cores. Furthermore, acyclicity in the preferences of either side of the market is a minimal condition that guarantees the existence of singleton cores. If firms or workers preferences are acyclical, unique stable matching is obtained through a procedure that resembles a serial dictatorship. Thus, acyclicity generalizes the notion of common preferences. It follows that if the firms or workers preferences are acyclical, unique stable matching is strongly efficient for the other side of the marketStable matching, Acyclicity, Singleton cores
Manipulation of Stable Matchings using Minimal Blacklists
Gale and Sotomayor (1985) have shown that in the Gale-Shapley matching
algorithm (1962), the proposed-to side W (referred to as women there) can
strategically force the W-optimal stable matching as the M-optimal one by
truncating their preference lists, each woman possibly blacklisting all but one
man. As Gusfield and Irving have already noted in 1989, no results are known
regarding achieving this feat by means other than such preference-list
truncation, i.e. by also permuting preference lists.
We answer Gusfield and Irving's open question by providing tight upper bounds
on the amount of blacklists and their combined size, that are required by the
women to force a given matching as the M-optimal stable matching, or, more
generally, as the unique stable matching. Our results show that the coalition
of all women can strategically force any matching as the unique stable
matching, using preference lists in which at most half of the women have
nonempty blacklists, and in which the average blacklist size is less than 1.
This allows the women to manipulate the market in a manner that is far more
inconspicuous, in a sense, than previously realized. When there are less women
than men, we show that in the absence of blacklists for men, the women can
force any matching as the unique stable matching without blacklisting anyone,
while when there are more women than men, each to-be-unmatched woman may have
to blacklist as many as all men. Together, these results shed light on the
question of how much, if at all, do given preferences for one side a priori
impose limitations on the set of stable matchings under various conditions. All
of the results in this paper are constructive, providing efficient algorithms
for calculating the desired strategies.Comment: Hebrew University of Jerusalem Center for the Study of Rationality
discussion paper 64
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