English

Stable Matchings with Diversity Constraints: Affirmative Action is beyond NP

Computer Science and Game Theory 2020-01-29 v1

Abstract

We investigate the following many-to-one stable matching problem with diversity constraints (SMTI-Diverse): Given a set of students and a set of colleges which have preferences over each other, where the students have overlapping types, and the colleges each have a total capacity as well as quotas for individual types (the diversity constraints), is there a matching satisfying all diversity constraints such that no unmatched student-college pair has an incentive to deviate? SMTI-Diverse is known to be NP-hard. However, as opposed to the NP-membership claims in the literature [Aziz et al., AAMAS 2019; Huang, SODA 2010], we prove that it is beyond NP: it is complete for the complexity class Σ2P\Sigma^{\text{P}}_2. In addition, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the problem's complexity from the viewpoint of natural restrictions to inputs and obtain new algorithms for the problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.10087,
  title  = {Stable Matchings with Diversity Constraints: Affirmative Action is beyond NP},
  author = {Jiehua Chen and Robert Ganian and Thekla Hamm},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.10087},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:22:21.976Z