Matching Under Preference Uncertainty: Random Allocation, Informativeness, and Welfare

Fuente: arXiv
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Autore principale: Ho, Yu-Ting
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Ho, Yu-Ting
author_facet Ho, Yu-Ting
contents This paper studies a decentralized many-to-one matching market where preferences remain uncertain during the matching process. Institutions initiate matching by sending offers, and applicants decide whether to accept upon receiving them. Since applicants learn their preferences only after receiving offers, institutions face a challenge in deciding how many offers to issue. I address this challenge by introducing probabilistic offers (admitting applicants with a probability less than one), which ensure that ex-ante market clearing and stability are achievable. However, the welfare effect of information is subtle: applicants may become worse off as they acquire more information.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_09988
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Matching Under Preference Uncertainty: Random Allocation, Informativeness, and Welfare
Ho, Yu-Ting
Theoretical Economics
This paper studies a decentralized many-to-one matching market where preferences remain uncertain during the matching process. Institutions initiate matching by sending offers, and applicants decide whether to accept upon receiving them. Since applicants learn their preferences only after receiving offers, institutions face a challenge in deciding how many offers to issue. I address this challenge by introducing probabilistic offers (admitting applicants with a probability less than one), which ensure that ex-ante market clearing and stability are achievable. However, the welfare effect of information is subtle: applicants may become worse off as they acquire more information.
title Matching Under Preference Uncertainty: Random Allocation, Informativeness, and Welfare
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.09988