Strong core and Pareto-optimality in the multiple partners matching problem under lexicographic preference domains

B-Tier
Journal: Games and Economic Behavior
Year: 2024
Volume: 145
Issue: C
Pages: 217-238

Authors (2)

Biró, Péter (Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem) Csáji, Gergely (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study strong core and Pareto-optimal solutions for multiple partners matching problem under lexicographic preference domains from a computational point of view. The restriction to the two-sided case is called stable many-to-many matching problem and the general one-sided case is called stable fixtures problem. We provide an example to show that the strong core can be empty even for many-to-many problems, and that deciding the non-emptiness of the strong core is NP-hard. On the positive side, we give efficient algorithms for finding a near feasible strong core solution and for finding a fractional matching in the strong core of fractional matchings. In contrast with the NP-hardness result for the stable fixtures problem, we show that finding a maximum size matching that is Pareto-optimal can be done efficiently for many-to-many problems. Finally, we show that for reverse-lexicographic preferences the strong core is always non-empty in the many-to-many case.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:gamebe:v:145:y:2024:i:c:p:217-238
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24