IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v121y2020icp252-264.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unraveling over time

Author

Listed:
  • Ambuehl, Sandro
  • Groves, Vivienne

Abstract

Unraveling, the excessively early matching of future workers to employers, leads to hiring decisions based on severely incomplete information. We provide a model of unraveling in a one-to-one matching market without transfers. Its distinguishing feature is the gradual arrival of information about students that occurs over an extended period of time during which matches can be made. In equilibrium, the market spreads thinly over that period and employers' attractiveness to students is uncorrelated with their worker's productivity. Our model connects previous, seemingly unrelated models of unraveling and it highlights the implications of the two-period assumption on which they rely. Our setting permits the analysis of information timing policies. These are effective only if they provide a sudden and sufficiently large surge in information. Our main application is in the market for clerks to U.S. Federal Appellate Courts, a significant input into the efficiency of the justice system.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambuehl, Sandro & Groves, Vivienne, 2020. "Unraveling over time," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 252-264.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:121:y:2020:i:c:p:252-264
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.02.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825620300300
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2020.02.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Halaburda, Hanna, 2010. "Unravelling in two-sided matching markets and similarity of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 365-393, July.
    2. Alvin E Roth & Richard A Posner & Christine Jolls & Christopher Avery, 2007. "The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000288, UCLA Department of Economics.
    3. Haruvy, Ernan & Roth, Alvin E. & Unver, M. Utku, 2006. "The dynamics of law clerk matching: An experimental and computational investigation of proposals for reform of the market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 457-486, March.
    4. repec:oup:amlawe:v:19:y:2017:i:1:p:96-128 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fainmesser, Itay P., 2013. "Social networks and unraveling in labor markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 64-103.
    6. Ettore Damiano & Hao Li & Wing Suen, 2005. "Unravelling of Dynamic Sorting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1057-1076.
    7. Adam Bonica & Adam S. Chilton & Jacob Goldin & Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen, 2017. "The Political Ideologies of Law Clerks," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 96-128.
    8. Echenique, Federico & Pereyra, Juan Sebastián, 2016. "Strategic complementarities and unraveling in matching markets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), January.
    9. Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2010. "Information Disclosure and Unraveling in Matching Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 34-63, May.
    10. Jonathan M.V. Davis, 2017. "The Short and Long Run Impacts of Centralized Clearinghouses: Evidence from Matching Teach For America Teachers to Schools," 2017 Papers pda791, Job Market Papers.
    11. Tom Ginsburg & Jeffrey Wolf, "undated". "The Market for Elite Law Firm Associates," University of Illinois Legal Working Paper Series uiuclwps-1000, University of Illinois College of Law.
    12. Yuhta Ishii & Aniko Ory & Adrien Vigier, 2018. "Competing for Talent," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2119, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    13. Roth, Alvin E & Xing, Xiaolin, 1994. "Jumping the Gun: Imperfections and Institutions Related to the Timing of Market Transactions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 992-1044, September.
    14. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth & M. Utku Ünver, 2013. "Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-40, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Posner, Richard A. & Avery, Christopher & Jolls, Christine & Roth, Alvin, 2001. "The Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," Scholarly Articles 2623748, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    17. Li, Hao & Rosen, Sherwin, 1998. "Unraveling in Matching Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 371-387, June.
    18. Axel Anderson & Lones Smith & Andreas Park, 2017. "Rushes in Large Timing Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 871-913, May.
    19. Wing Suen, 2000. "A Competitive Theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(1), pages 101-120, Spring.
    20. Hao Li & Wing Suen, 2000. "Risk Sharing, Sorting, and Early Contracting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1058-1087, October.
    21. 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.
    22. Hao Li & Wing Suen, 2004. "Self-Fulfilling Early-Contracting Rush," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(1), pages 301-324, February.
    23. Yuhta Ishii & Aniko Ory & Adrien Vigier, 2018. "Competing for Talent," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 3019, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Okudaira, Hiroko, 2020. "Regulating the timing of job search: evidence from the labor market for new college graduates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Yuhta Ishii & Aniko Ory & Adrien Vigier, 2018. "Competing for Talent," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2119, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Yuhta Ishii & Aniko Ory & Adrien Vigier, 2018. "Competing for Talent," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 3019, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Yann Bramoullé & Brian W. Rogers & Erdem Yenerdag, 2022. "Matching with Recall," AMSE Working Papers 2203, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth & M. Utku Ünver, 2013. "Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-40, June.
    2. Siqi Pan, 2018. "Exploding offers and unraveling in two-sided matching markets," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(1), pages 351-373, March.
    3. Alvin E. Roth, 2012. "Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions: Reply to Priest," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 479-494.
    4. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 235-271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2004. "Market Culture: How Norms Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000018, UCLA Department of Economics.
    6. Olivier Bos & Martin Ranger, 2018. "Risk and Unraveling in Labor Markets," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 129, pages 127-144.
    7. Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "What Have We Learned from Market Design?," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 79-112.
    8. Halaburda, Hanna, 2010. "Unravelling in two-sided matching markets and similarity of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 365-393, July.
    9. Alvin Roth, 2008. "Deferred acceptance algorithms: history, theory, practice, and open questions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 537-569, March.
    10. Fainmesser, Itay P., 2013. "Social networks and unraveling in labor markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 64-103.
    11. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2001. "Unraveling Reduces the Scope of an Entry Level Labor Market: Gastroenterology With and Without a Centralized Match," NBER Working Papers 8616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Alvin E. Roth & M. Utku Ünver, 2007. "Unraveling yields inefficient matchings: evidence from post-season college football bowls," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 967-982, December.
    13. C. Nicholas McKinney & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2003. "The collapse of a medical clearinghouse (and why such failures are rare)," NBER Working Papers 9467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. C. Nicholas McKinney & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The Collapse of a Medical Labor Clearinghouse (and Why Such Failures Are Rare)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 878-889, June.
    15. Echenique, Federico & Pereyra, Juan Sebastián, 2016. "Strategic complementarities and unraveling in matching markets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(1), January.
    16. Alvin E. Roth, 2010. "Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions," NBER Working Papers 16556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Haruvy, Ernan & Roth, Alvin E. & Unver, M. Utku, 2006. "The dynamics of law clerk matching: An experimental and computational investigation of proposals for reform of the market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 457-486, March.
    18. Mustafa Afacan, 2013. "The welfare effects of pre-arrangements in matching markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 53(1), pages 139-151, May.
    19. Yann Bramoullé & Brian W. Rogers & Erdem Yenerdag, 2022. "Matching with Recall," AMSE Working Papers 2203, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    20. Yuhta Ishii & Aniko Ory & Adrien Vigier, 2018. "Competing for Talent," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2119, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:121:y:2020:i:c:p:252-264. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.