Optimal Growth in Repeated Matching Platforms: Options versus Adoption

05/21/2020
by   Irene Lo, et al.
0

We study the design of a decentralized platform in which workers and jobs repeatedly match, and their future engagement with the platform depends on whether they successfully find a match. The platform offers two types of matches to workers: an "adopted match" which entails repeatedly matching with the same job or a one-time match. Due to randomness in match compatibility, adoption seems favorable as it reduces uncertainty in matching. However, high adoption levels reduce the number of available jobs, which in turn can suppress future worker engagement if the remaining workers cannot find a match. To optimally resolve the trade-off between adoption and maintaining available options, we develop a random market model that captures the heterogeneity in workers' future engagement based on match type. Our analysis reveals that the optimal policy for maximizing the matching in a single period is either full or no adoption. For sufficiently thick markets, we show that the optimal single-period policy is also optimal for maximizing the total discounted number of matches. In thinner markets, even though a static policy of full or no adoption can be suboptimal, it achieves a constant-factor approximation where the factor improves with market thickness.

READ FULL TEXT

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

research
03/15/2016

Matching While Learning

We consider the problem faced by a service platform that needs to match ...
research
07/07/2020

Stability in Repeated Matching Markets

This paper develops a framework for repeated matching markets. The model...
research
02/04/2021

Matching Impatient and Heterogeneous Demand and Supply

Service platforms must determine rules for matching heterogeneous demand...
research
07/10/2019

Assortment planning for two-sided sequential matching markets

Two-sided matching platforms provide users with menus of match recommend...
research
04/27/2018

Subgame Perfect Equilibria of Sequential Matching Games

We study a decentralized matching market in which firms sequentially mak...
research
04/14/2022

Longitudinal Complex Dynamics of Labour Markets Reveal Increasing Polarisation

In this paper we conduct a longitudinal analysis of the structure of lab...
research
02/19/2020

Online Policies for Efficient Volunteer Crowdsourcing

Nonprofit crowdsourcing platforms such as food recovery organizations re...

Please sign up or login with your details

Forgot password? Click here to reset