Stable marriages and search frictions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lauermann, Stephan; Noeldeke, Georg
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; University of Basel
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.11.001
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 163-195
• 关键词: Marriage market; nontransferable utility; stable matchings; search frictions

摘要

Stable matchings are the primary solution concept for two-sided matching markets with nontransferable utility. We investigate the strategic foundations of stability in a decentralized matching market. Towards this end, we embed the standard marriage markets in a search model with random meetings. We study the limit of steady-state equilibria as exogenous frictions vanish. The main result is that convergence of equilibrium matchings to stable matchings is guaranteed if and only if there is a unique stable matching in the underlying marriage market. Whenever there are multiple stable matchings, sequences of equilibrium matchings converging to unstable, inefficient matchings can be constructed. Thus, vanishing frictions do not guarantee the stability and efficiency of decentralized marriage markets. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.