Abstract: In this paper, we investigate monopoly pricing when the buyer can acquire information about the value of the seller's product from an independent expert. We demonstrate that the expert is advantageous to the buyer only when the cost of seeking advice is not too low. When the buyer faces a moderate cost of obtaining information from the expert, the seller ’prices out’ the expert by offering discounts to dissuade the buyer from seeking advice. This approach generates a positive surplus for the buyer. In contrast, when the buyer’s cost is low, the seller ’prices in’ the expert, capitalizing on the buyer’s easy access to information to demand a premium. We also show that the seller and intermediary may benefit from tacit collusion and direct payments in pricing-out equilibria but never in pricing-in equilibria. 

Abstract: In the dormitory allocation systems used by many universities in England, new students are systematically granted higher priority than senior students. Motivated by this institutional practice, we develop an assignment model that formally captures this priority structure. Our framework stands in sharp contrast to the existing literature, where students endowed with dormitories typically retain priority in the allocation process. Within this setting, we study the joint assignment of new and senior students to dormitories and introduce the Proposing and Swapping Deferred Acceptance (PSDA) mechanism to find a stable matching. We further demonstrate that, under this mechanism, it is a dominant strategy for all students to truthfully report their preferences..

Abstract: In many sports, such as football and wheelchair basketball, roster constraints between teams and players are not fixed but vary flexibly with players’ types. Motivated by this institutional feature, we develop a two-sided matching model with flexible constraints. This approach stands in sharp contrast to the existing literature, where constraints are typically assumed to be exogenously given and fixed. Within this framework, we study the problem of assigning players to clubs when feasibility depends endogenously on the composition of each club’s roster. To address this problem, we propose the Club Proposing Multiple Stages (CPMS) mechanism, which is designed to produce stable and efficient matchings under flexible constraints. We further establish that truthful preference reporting constitutes a dominant strategy for each club under the CPMS mechanism.

Abstract: This paper studies a two-sided matching problem with feasibility constraints and priority structures. We separate feasibility from priority: feasibility determines implementability, while priority governs admissible deviations in stability. We introduce a refined notion of stability based on three types of blocking pairs. To implement stable outcomes, we propose a Multi-stage Deferred Acceptance (MDA) mechanism that provides access to cross-institution matching. The mechanism yields a feasible, stable, and Pareto efficient allocation, but is strategy-proof only for restricted agents. Our results show that priority constraints fundamentally reshape stability and mechanism design in matching markets.

Abstract: will be added soon.