Transparent Matching Mechanisms

Markus Möller ()

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: In a standard one-to-one agent-object matching model, I consider a central matching authority that publicly announces a strategy-proof mechanism and then initiates a matching. Following Akbarpour and Li (2020), the authority's commitment to the announced mechanism is limited to mechanisms rendering participants' observations indistinguishable from it. I call an announced mechanism transparent if any deviation from it would be detected. The main findings identify trade-offs regarding transparency and other desirable properties: Under stability or efficiency, strategy-proof mechanisms are transparent if and only if they are dictatorial. However, at the same time, the agent-proposing Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism is tantamount to commiting to stability, while efficient mechanisms often fail to commit to efficiency. This transparency trade-off between stability and efficiency persists when strategy-proofness is guaranteed.

Keywords: Matching; Transparency; Strategy-Proof; Stability; Efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D47 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28
Date: 2025-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp666 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_666

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany Kaiserstr. 1, 53113 Bonn , Germany.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CRC Office ().