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Some things couples always wanted to know about stable matchings (but were afraid to ask)

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  • Bettina Klaus
  • Flip Klijn
  • Jordi Massó

Abstract

It is well-known that couples that look jointly for jobs in the same centralized labor market may cause instabilities. We demonstrate that for a natural preference domain for couples, namely the domain of responsive preferences, the existence of stable matchings can easily be established. However, a small deviation from responsiveness in one couple's preference relation that models the wish of a couple to be closer together may already cause instability. This demonstrates that the nonexistence of stable matchings in couples markets is not a singular theoretical irregularity. Our nonexistence result persists even when a weaker stability notion is used that excludes myopic blocking. Moreover, we show that even if preferences are responsive there are problems that do not arise for singles markets. Even though for couples markets with responsive preferences the set of stable matchings is nonempty, the lattice structure that this set has for singles markets does not carry over. Furthermore we demonstrate that the new algorithm adopted by the National Resident Matching Program to fill positions for physicians in the United States may cycle, while in fact a stable matchings does exist, and be prone to strategic manipulation if the members of a couple pretend to be single.
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Suggested Citation

  • Bettina Klaus & Flip Klijn & Jordi Massó, 2007. "Some things couples always wanted to know about stable matchings (but were afraid to ask)," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 11(3), pages 175-184, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:11:y:2007:i:3:p:175-184
    DOI: 10.1007/s10058-006-0017-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klaus, Bettina & Klijn, Flip, 2005. "Stable matchings and preferences of couples," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 75-106, March.
    2. Roth,Alvin E. & Sotomayor,Marilda A. Oliveira, 1992. "Two-Sided Matching," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521437882.
    3. Roth,Alvin E. & Sotomayor,Marilda A. Oliveira, 1992. "Two-Sided Matching," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521437882.
    4. Roth, Alvin E, 1984. "The Evolution of the Labor Market for Medical Interns and Residents: A Case Study in Game Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 991-1016, December.
    5. Alvin E. Roth, 2002. "The Economist as Engineer: Game Theory, Experimentation, and Computation as Tools for Design Economics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1341-1378, July.
    6. Roth, Alvin E & Vande Vate, John H, 1990. "Random Paths to Stability in Two-Sided Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1475-1480, November.
    7. Zhou Lin, 1994. "A New Bargaining Set of an N-Person Game and Endogenous Coalition Formation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 512-526, May.
    8. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Klaus, Bettina & Klijn, Flip, 2007. "Paths to stability for matching markets with couples," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 154-171, January.
    2. Lars Ehlers & Jordi Massó, 2004. "Incomplete Information and Small Cores in Matching Markets," Working Papers 147, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2004:i:45:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Klaus, Bettina & Klijn, Flip, 2005. "Stable matchings and preferences of couples," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 75-106, March.
    5. Aslan, Fatma & Lainé, Jean, 2020. "Competitive equilibria in Shapley–Scarf markets with couples," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 66-78.
    6. Alfredo Salgado-Torres, 2012. "A simple decentralized matching mechanism in markets with couples," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2044-2055.
    7. Bettina Klaus & Flip Klijn, 2007. "Fair and efficient student placement with couples," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(2), pages 177-207, October.
    8. Dogan, Onur & Laffond, Gilbert & Lainé, Jean, 2011. "The Core of Shapley-Scarf markets with couples," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 60-67, January.
    9. David Cantala, 2011. "Agreement toward stability in matching markets," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 15(4), pages 293-316, December.
    10. Péter Biró & Flip Klijn, 2013. "Matching With Couples: A Multidisciplinary Survey," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(02), pages 1-18.
    11. Rouzbeh Ghouchani & Szilvia Pápai, 2022. "Preference aggregation for couples," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(4), pages 889-923, November.
    12. Peter Biro & Tamas Fleiner & Rob Irving, 2013. "Matching Couples with Scarf's Algorithm," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1330, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    13. Hatfield, John William & Kominers, Scott Duke, 2017. "Contract design and stability in many-to-many matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 78-97.
    14. Jay Sethuraman & Chung-Piaw Teo & Liwen Qian, 2006. "Many-to-One Stable Matching: Geometry and Fairness," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 581-596, August.
    15. Nicolò, Antonio & Sen, Arunava & Yadav, Sonal, 2019. "Matching with partners and projects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    16. Britta Hoyer & Nadja Stroh-Maraun, 2020. "Stability in Weighted College Admissions Problems," Working Papers Dissertations 63, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Matching; Stability; Couples; C78; D78; J41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

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