Two-Sided Matching
A Study in Game-Theoretic Modeling and Analysis

This book provides a comprehensive account of recent results concerning the game-theoretic analysis of two-sided matching.

Alvin E. Roth (Author), Marilda A. Oliveira Sotomayor (Author)

9780521437882, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 June 1992

280 pages, 5 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.6 x 15 x 1.3 cm, 0.375 kg

"An expertly guided tour through an unfamiliar and beautiful region of equilibrium theory would be quite enough incentive for most economic theorists to buy and read this book. But perhaps the greatest treat offred is Roth's discovery of a happy coincidence between theory and practical affairs." Journal of Economic Literature

Two-sided matching provides a model of search processes such as those between firms and workers in labor markets or between buyers and sellers in auctions. This book gives a comprehensive account of recent results concerning the game-theoretic analysis of two-sided matching. The focus of the book is on the stability of outcomes, on the incentives that different rules of organization give to agents, and on the constraints that these incentives impose on the ways such markets can be organized. The results for this wide range of related models and matching situations help clarify which conclusions depend on particular modeling assumptions and market conditions, and which are robust over a wide range of conditions. 'This book chronicles one of the outstanding success stories of the theory of games, a story in which the authors have played a major role: the theory and practice of matching markets … The authors are to be warmly congratulated for this fine piece of work, which is quite unique in the game-theoretic literature.' From the Foreword by Robert Aumann

Foreword Robert Auman
Acknowledgment
1. Introduction
Part I. One-To-One Matching: the Marriage Model: 2. Stable matchings
3. The structure of the set of stable matchings
4. Strategic questions
Part II. Many-To-One Matching: Models in which Firms May Employ Many Workers: 5. The college admissions model and the labor market for medical interns
6. Discrete models with money, and more complex preferences
Part III. Models of One-To-One Matching with Money as a Continuous Variable: 7. A simple model of one seller and many buyers
8. The assignment game
9. The generalization of the assignment model
Part IV. Epilogue: 10. Open questions and research directions
Bibliography
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Econometrics [KCH]