Robust Popular Matchings

Martin Bullinger (University of Oxford), Rohith Reddy Gangam (University of California, Irvine), Parnian Shahkar (University of California, Irvine)

Abstract

We study popularity for matchings under preferences. This solution concept captures matchings that do not lose against any other matching in a majority vote by the agents. A popular matching is said to be robust if it is popular among multiple instances. We present a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding whether there exists a robust popular matching if instances only differ with respect to the preferences of a single agent while obtaining NP-completeness if two instances differ only by a downward shift of one alternative by four agents. Moreover, we find a complexity dichotomy based on preference completeness for the case where instances differ by making some options unavailable.