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Harmful signaling in matching markets

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  • Kushnir, Alexey

Abstract

Several labor markets, including the job market for new Ph.D. economists, have recently developed formal signaling mechanisms. We show that such mechanisms are harmful for some environments. While signals transmit previously unavailable information, they also facilitate information asymmetry that leads to coordination failures. In particular, we consider a two-sided matching game of incomplete information between firms and workers. Each worker has either the same “typical” known preferences with probability close to one or “atypical” idiosyncratic preferences with the complementary probability close to zero. Firms have known preferences over workers. We show that under some technical condition if at least three firms are responsive to some workerʼs signal, the introduction of signaling strictly decreases the expected number of matches.

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  • Kushnir, Alexey, 2013. "Harmful signaling in matching markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 209-218.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:80:y:2013:i:c:p:209-218
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2013.04.002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Peter Coles & Alexey Kushnir & Muriel Niederle, 2013. "Preference Signaling in Matching Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 99-134, May.
    2. Nick Arnosti & Ramesh Johari & Yash Kanoria, 2021. "Managing Congestion in Matching Markets," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 620-636, May.
    3. Baodong Li & Yu Yang & Jiafu Su & Zhichao Liang & Sheng Wang, 2020. "Two-sided matching decision-making model with hesitant fuzzy preference information for configuring cloud manufacturing tasks and resources," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 31(8), pages 2033-2047, December.
    4. Soohyung Lee & Muriel Niederle, 2015. "Propose with a rose? Signaling in internet dating markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 731-755, December.
    5. Horton, John J. & Johari, Ramesh & Kircher, Philipp, 2021. "Cheap Talk Messages for Market Design: Theory and Evidence from a Labor Market with Directed," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2021033, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

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