English

Matching with Incomplete Preferences

General Economics 2023-11-20 v3 Economics

Abstract

I study a two-sided marriage market in which agents have incomplete preferences -- i.e., they find some alternatives incomparable. The strong (weak) core consists of matchings wherein no coalition wants to form a new match between themselves, leaving some (all) agents better off without harming anyone. The strong core may be empty, while the weak core can be too large. I propose the concept of the "compromise core" -- a nonempty set that sits between the weak and the strong cores. Similarly, I define the men-(women-) optimal core and illustrate its benefit in an application to India's engineering college admissions system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.02613,
  title  = {Matching with Incomplete Preferences},
  author = {Aditya Kuvalekar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.02613},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T07:22:58.845Z