Transparent matching mechanisms

Markus Möller ()
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Markus Möller: Department of Economics, University of Bonn

Theoretical Economics, Forthcoming

Abstract: In the 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. At the same time, the agent-proposing Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism is equivalent to committing 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: Transparency; partial commitment; matching; stability; efficiency; strategy-proof (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D47 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-06-04
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