Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • January 2017
  • Article
  • Games and Economic Behavior

Contract Design and Stability in Many-to-Many Matching

By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

We develop a model of many-to-many matching with contracts that subsumes as special cases many-to-many matching markets and buyer/seller markets with heterogeneous and indivisible goods. In our setting, substitutable preferences are sufficient to guarantee the existence of stable outcomes; moreover, in contrast to results for the setting of many-to-one matching with contracts, if any agent’s preferences are not substitutable, then the existence of a stable outcome cannot be guaranteed. In many-to-many matching with contracts, a new market design issue arises: the design of the contract language can impact the set of stable outcomes. Bundling contractual primitives encourages substitutability of agents’ preferences over contracts and makes stable outcomes more likely to exist; however, bundling also makes the contractual language less expressive. Consequently, we see that, in choosing contract language, market designers face a tradeoff between expressiveness and stability.

Keywords

Many-to-Many Matching; Stability; Substitutes; Contract Design; Contracts; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability

Citation

Hatfield, John William, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Contract Design and Stability in Many-to-Many Matching." Games and Economic Behavior 101 (January 2017): 78–97.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Scott Duke Kominers

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • June 2025
    • Journal of Finance

    Collusion in Brokered Markets

    By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
    • March 14, 2025
    • Harvard Crimson

    Harvard Students Should Ignore Calls to Boycott Israel Trek

    By: Jesse M. Fried, Paul A. Gompers, Scott Kominers and Mark C. Poznansky
    • March 2025
    • Faculty Research

    O2X: Optimizing to the X

    By: Scott Duke Kominers, Thomas Jennings and Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon
More from the Authors
  • Collusion in Brokered Markets By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
  • Harvard Students Should Ignore Calls to Boycott Israel Trek By: Jesse M. Fried, Paul A. Gompers, Scott Kominers and Mark C. Poznansky
  • O2X: Optimizing to the X By: Scott Duke Kominers, Thomas Jennings and Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.