Procedurally fair and stable matching

Summary. We motivate procedural fairness for matching mechanisms and study two procedurally fair and stable mechanisms: employment by lotto (Aldershof et al. , 1999) and the random order mechanism (Roth and Vande Vate, 1990, Ma, 1996). For both mechanisms we give various examples of probability distributions on the set of stable matchings and discuss properties that differentiate employment by lotto and the random order mechanism. Finally, we consider an adjustment of the random order mechanism, the equitable random order mechanism, that combines aspects of procedural and endstate fairness.Received: 9 September 2003, Revised: 12 December 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: C78, D63. Correspondence to: Flip KlijnWe thank two referees and a co-editor for helpful comments and suggestions. B. Klauss and F. Klijns research has been supported by Ramón y Cajal contracts of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. The work of the authors has also been partially supported by Research Grant BEC2002-02130 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and by the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA. This paper is part of the Polarization and Conflict Project CIT-2-CT-2004-506084 funded by the European Commission-DG Research Sixth Framework Programme. This article reflects only the authors views and the Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.