IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v66y2025i2p757-786.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nonstandard Choice In Matching Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Gian Caspari
  • Manshu Khanna

Abstract

We explore the possibility of designing matching mechanisms that can accommodate nonstandard choice behavior. We pin down the necessary and sufficient conditions on participants' choice behavior for the existence of stable and incentive‐compatible mechanisms. Our results imply that well‐functioning matching markets can be designed to adequately accommodate a plethora of choice behaviors, including the standard behavior consistent with preference maximization. To illustrate the significance of our results in practice, we show that a simple modification in a commonly used matching mechanism enables it to accommodate nonstandard choice behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Gian Caspari & Manshu Khanna, 2025. "Nonstandard Choice In Matching Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(2), pages 757-786, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:66:y:2025:i:2:p:757-786
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12734
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12734
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12734?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klijn, Flip & Pais, Joana & Vorsatz, Marc, 2019. "Static versus dynamic deferred acceptance in school choice: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 147-163.
    2. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler & Siqi Pan, 2023. "Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1447-1490, November.
    3. Inácio Bó & Rustamdjan Hakimov, 2020. "Iterative Versus Standard Deferred Acceptance: Experimental Evidence," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(626), pages 356-392.
    4. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2014. "Behavioral Implementation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2975-3002, October.
    5. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488.
    6. Xu, Yongsheng & Zhou, Lin, 2007. "Rationalizability of choice functions by game trees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 548-556, May.
    7. Caterina Calsamiglia & Guillaume Haeringer & Flip Klijn, 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1860-1874, September.
    8. Christopher P. Chambers & M. Bumin Yenmez, 2017. "Choice and Matching," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 126-147, August.
    9. Gil Kalai & Ariel Rubinstein & Ran Spiegler, 2002. "Rationalizing Choice Functions By Multiple Rationales," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2481-2488, November.
    10. Horan, Sean, 2016. "A simple model of two-stage choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 372-406.
    11. Sasaki, Hiroo & Toda, Manabu, 1996. "Two-Sided Matching Problems with Externalities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 93-108, July.
    12. Georgios Gerasimou, 2018. "Indecisiveness, Undesirability and Overload Revealed Through Rational Choice Deferral," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(614), pages 2450-2479, September.
    13. Shengwu Li, 2017. "Obviously Strategy-Proof Mechanisms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3257-3287, November.
    14. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Ok, Efe A., 2005. "Rational choice with status quo bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 1-29, March.
    15. Marek Pycia & M Bumin Yenmez, 2023. "Matching with Externalities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(2), pages 948-974.
    16. Lleras, Juan Sebastián & Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Nakajima, Daisuke & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2017. "When more is less: Limited consideration," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 70-85.
    17. Vincent Meisner, 2023. "Report-Dependent Utility and Strategy-Proofness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2733-2745, May.
    18. Grenet, Julien & He, Yinghua & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Decentralizing Centralized Matching Markets: Implications From Early Offers in University Admissions," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 158, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    19. Eric Budish & Judd B. Kessler, 2022. "Can Market Participants Report Their Preferences Accurately (Enough)?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1107-1130, February.
    20. Ryan Oprea, 2021. "What Makes a Rule Complex? Erratum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 755-755, February.
    21. Apesteguia, Jose & Ballester, Miguel A., 2013. "Choice by sequential procedures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 90-99.
    22. Julien Grenet & Yinghua He & Dorothea Kübler, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," Post-Print hal-04157650, HAL.
    23. Alex Rees-Jones & Ran Shorrer, 2023. "Behavioral Economics in Education Market Design: A Forward-Looking Review," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 557-613.
    24. Kyle Greenberg & Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez, 2024. "Redesigning the US Army's Branching Process: A Case Study in Minimalist Market Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(4), pages 1070-1106, April.
    25. Compte,Olivier & Postlewaite,Andrew, 2019. "Ignorance and Uncertainty," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108434492, January.
    26. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Daisuke Nakajima & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2012. "Revealed Attention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2183-2205, August.
    27. Robert Wilson, 2002. "Architecture of Power Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1299-1340, July.
    28. Bossert, Walter & Suzumura, Kotaro, 2010. "Consistency, Choice, and Rationality," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674052994, march.
    29. repec:cdl:ucsdec:qt3xp2110t is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Pan, Siqi, 2019. "The instability of matching with overconfident agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 396-415.
    31. Mackenzie, Andrew & Zhou, Yu, 2022. "Menu mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    32. Plott, Charles R, 1973. "Path Independence, Rationality, and Social Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(6), pages 1075-1091, November.
    33. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    34. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2007. "Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 242-259, March.
    35. Avinatan Hassidim & Assaf Romm & Ran I. Shorrer, 2021. "The Limits of Incentives in Economic Matching Procedures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 951-963, February.
    36. Julien Grenet & YingHua He & Dorothea Kübler, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1427-1476.
    37. Roth, Alvin E., 1985. "The college admissions problem is not equivalent to the marriage problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 277-288, August.
    38. John McMillan, 1994. "Selling Spectrum Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 145-162, Summer.
    39. Marek Pycia, 2012. "Stability and Preference Alignment in Matching and Coalition Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 323-362, January.
    40. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    41. Federico Echenique & Alistair J. Wilson & Leeat Yariv, 2016. "Clearinghouses for two‐sided matching: An experimental study," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(2), pages 449-482, July.
    42. John H. Kagel & Alvin E. Roth, 2000. "The Dynamics of Reorganization in Matching Markets: A Laboratory Experiment Motivated by a Natural Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 201-235.
    43. Paul Milgrom, 2011. "Critical Issues In The Practice Of Market Design," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 311-320, April.
    44. Yuval Salant & Jörg L. Spenkuch, 2021. "Complexity and Choice," CESifo Working Paper Series 9239, CESifo.
    45. Roth, Alvin E. & Sonmez, Tayfun & Utku Unver, M., 2005. "Pairwise kidney exchange," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 151-188, December.
    46. B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Behavioral Welfare Economics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 267-319, 04-05.
    47. Paul Milgrom, 2000. "Putting Auction Theory to Work: The Simultaneous Ascending Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 245-272, April.
    48. Ran I. Shorrer & Sándor Sóvágó, 2023. "Dominated Choices in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 781-807.
    49. Highhouse, Scott, 1996. "Context-Dependent Selection: The Effects of Decoy and Phantom Job Candidates," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 68-76, January.
    50. B. Douglas Bernheim & Antonio Rangel, 2009. "Beyond Revealed Preference: Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 51-104.
    51. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    52. Michael D. Grubb, 2015. "Consumer Inattention and Bill-Shock Regulation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 219-257.
    53. Aytek Erdil & Haluk Ergin, 2008. "What's the Matter with Tie-Breaking? Improving Efficiency in School Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 669-689, June.
    54. Eric Budish, 2011. "The Combinatorial Assignment Problem: Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1061-1103.
    55. Rees-Jones, Alex, 2018. "Suboptimal behavior in strategy-proof mechanisms: Evidence from the residency match," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 317-330.
    56. Hatfield, John William & Kojima, Fuhito, 2010. "Substitutes and stability for matching with contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1704-1723, September.
    57. Sophie Bade, 2016. "Pareto-optimal matching allocation mechanisms for boundedly rational agents," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(3), pages 501-510, October.
    58. Julien Grenet & Yinghua He & Dorothea Kübler, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-04157650, HAL.
    59. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2007. "Sequentially Rationalizable Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1824-1839, December.
    60. Umut Dur & Robert G. Hammond & Thayer Morrill, 2018. "Identifying the Harm of Manipulable School-Choice Mechanisms," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 187-213, February.
    61. , & ,, 2006. "A model of choice from lists," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(1), pages 3-17, March.
    62. Haeringer, Guillaume & Klijn, Flip, 2009. "Constrained school choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 1921-1947, September.
    63. Zhang, Jun, 2021. "Level-k reasoning in school choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-17.
    64. Huber, Joel & Payne, John W & Puto, Christopher, 1982. "Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(1), pages 90-98, June.
    65. Eliaz, Kfir & Ok, Efe A., 2006. "Indifference or indecisiveness? Choice-theoretic foundations of incomplete preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 61-86, July.
    66. Alvin E. Roth, 1982. "The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 617-628, November.
    67. Bnaya Dreyfuss & Ori Heffetz & Matthew Rabin, 2022. "Expectations-Based Loss Aversion May Help Explain Seemingly Dominated Choices in Strategy-Proof Mechanisms," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 515-555, November.
    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. In'acio B'o & Gian Caspari & Manshu Khanna, 2025. "Visibly Fair Mechanisms," Papers 2506.19176, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.

    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. Kovač, Dejan & Neilson, Christopher A. & Raith, Johanna, 2025. "College application choices in a repeated Deferred Acceptance (DA) Setting: Empirical evidence from Croatia," IWH Discussion Papers 9/2025, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    2. Roy Chen & Peter Katuščák & Thomas Kittsteiner & Katharina Kütter, 2024. "Does disappointment aversion explain non-truthful reporting in strategy-proof mechanisms?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(5), pages 1184-1210, November.
    3. Bó, Inácio & Hakimov, Rustamdjan, 2022. "The iterative deferred acceptance mechanism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 411-433.
    4. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 434-488.
    5. Rustamdjan Hakimov & Dorothea Kübler & Siqi Pan, 2023. "Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1447-1490, November.
    6. T. Hayashi & R. Jain & V. Korpela & M. Lombardi, 2023. "Behavioral strong implementation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1257-1287, November.
    7. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2014. "Behavioral Implementation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2975-3002, October.
    8. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    9. Hu, Xinquan & Yao, Lan, 2024. "Cognitive ability in matching with strategic uncertainty: An experimental study," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Flip Klijn & Marc Vorsatz, 2023. "Constrained school choice: an experimental QRE analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 587-624, October.
    11. Alfio Giarlotta & Angelo Petralia & Stephen Watson, 2022. "Semantics meets attractiveness: Choice by salience," Papers 2204.08798, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    12. 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.
    13. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Tayfun Sönmez, 2013. "Bidding for Army Career Specialties: Improving the ROTC Branching Mechanism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(1), pages 186-219.
    15. Hassan Nosratabadi, 2017. "Referential Revealed Preference Theory," Departmental Working Papers 201705, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    16. Georgios, Gerasimou, 2013. "A Behavioural Model of Choice in the Presence of Decision Conflict," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-25, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    17. Eric Budish & Judd B. Kessler, 2022. "Can Market Participants Report Their Preferences Accurately (Enough)?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1107-1130, February.
    18. Klijn, Flip & Pais, Joana & Vorsatz, Marc, 2019. "Static versus dynamic deferred acceptance in school choice: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 147-163.
    19. Grenet, Julien & He, YingHua & Kübler, Dorothea, 2022. "Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 130(6), pages 1-1.
    20. Kojima, Fuhito, 2013. "Efficient resource allocation under multi-unit demand," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-14.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:iecrev:v:66:y:2025:i:2:p:757-786. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.html .

    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.