This paper examines how preference correlation and intercorrelation combine to influence the length of a decentralized matching market's path to stability. In simulated experiments, marriage markets with various preference specifications begin at an arbitrary matching of couples and proceed toward stability via the random mechanism proposed by Roth and Vande Vate (1990). The results of these experiments reveal that fundamental preference characteristics are critical in predicting how long the market will take to reach a stable matching. In particular, intercorrelation and correlation are shown to have an exponential impact on the number of blocking pairs that must be randomly satisfied before stability is attained. The magnitude of the impact is dramatically different, however, depending on whether preferences are positively or negatively intercorrelated.
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Article provided by Economics Bulletin in its journal Economics Bulletin.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory C6 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming
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Roth, Alvin E. & Sotomayor, Marilda, 1992.
"Two-sided matching,"
Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,
in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 485-541
Elsevier.
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