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Obvious manipulations in matching with and without contracts

Author

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  • Arribillaga, R. Pablo
  • Pepa Risma, Eliana

Abstract

This paper explores many-to-one matching models, both with and without contracts, where doctors' preferences are private and hospitals' preferences are public and substitutable. It is known that any stable-dominating mechanism –which is either stable or individually rational and Pareto-dominates (from the doctors' perspective) a stable mechanism–, is susceptible to manipulation by doctors. Our study focuses on obvious manipulations and identifies stable-dominating mechanisms that prevent them. Without contracts, we show that any stable-dominating mechanism is not obviously manipulable. However, with contracts, none of these results hold. While we demonstrate that the Doctor-Proposing Deferred Acceptance (DA) Mechanism remains not obviously manipulable, we show that the Hospital-Proposing DA Mechanism and any efficient mechanism that Pareto-dominates the Doctor-Proposing DA Mechanism become (very) obviously manipulable, in the model with contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Arribillaga, R. Pablo & Pepa Risma, Eliana, 2025. "Obvious manipulations in matching with and without contracts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 70-81.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:151:y:2025:i:c:p:70-81
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.02.013
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    1. Arribillaga, R. Pablo & Bonifacio, Agustín G., 2025. "Obvious manipulations, consistency, and the uniform rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    2. SHINOZAKI, Hiroki, 2023. "Non-obvious manipulability and efficiency in package assignment problems with money for agents with income effects and hard budget constraints," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-136, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. R. Pablo Arribillaga & Agustín G. Bonifacio, 2025. "Not obviously manipulable allotment rules," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 80(1), pages 355-380, August.
    4. Hiroki Shinozaki, 2025. "Non-obvious manipulability in package assignment problems with money," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 54(2), pages 1-35, December.
    5. Hinata Kurashita & Ryosuke Sakai, 2025. "Egalitarian-equivalent and strategy-proof mechanisms in homogeneous multi-object allocation problems," Papers 2507.09152, arXiv.org.

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    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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