On Matching and Thickness in Heterogeneous Dynamic Markets
Name
1606.03626.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
1.42 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
88eec204d4ce8eb565ec639523e81098
Author(s)
Burq, Maximilien
Jaillet, Patrick
Date Issued
June 2019
Journal
Operations Research
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Citation
Ashlagi, Itai et al. “On Matching and Thickness in Heterogeneous Dynamic Markets.” Operations Research, 67, 4 (June 2019): ii-iv, 905-1208 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
We study dynamic matching in an infinite-horizon stochastic market. Although all agents are potentially compatible with each other, some are hard to match and others are easy to match. Agents prefer to be matched as soon as possible, and matches are formed either bilaterally or indirectly through chains. We adopt an asymptotic approach and compute tight bounds on the limit of waiting time of agents under myopic policies that differ in matching technology and prioritization. We find that when hard-to-match agents arrive less frequently than easy-to-match ones, (i) bilateral matching is almost as efficient as chains (waiting times scale similarly under both, though chains always outperform bilateral matching by a constant factor), and (ii) assigning priorities to hard-to-match agents improves their waiting times. When hard-to-match agents arrive more frequently, chains are much more efficient than bilateral matching, and prioritization has no impact. Furthermore, somewhat surprisingly, we find that in a heterogeneous market and under bilateral matching, increasing the arrival rate of hard-to-match agents has a nonmonotone effect on waiting times. This behavior is in contrast with that of a homogeneous dynamic market, where increasing arrival rate always improves waiting time, and it highlights fundamental differences between heterogeneous and homogeneous dynamic markets.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1287/OPRE.2018.1826
