Competing Bandits in Matching Markets via Super Stability

We study bandit learning in matching markets with two-sided reward uncertainty, extending prior research primarily focused on single-sided uncertainty. Leveraging the concept of `super-stability' from Irving (1994), we demonstrate the advantage of the Extended Gale-Shapley (GS) algorithm over the standard GS algorithm in achieving true stable matchings under incomplete information. By employing the Extended GS algorithm, our centralized algorithm attains a logarithmic pessimal stable regret dependent on an instance-dependent admissible gap parameter. This algorithm is further adapted to a decentralized setting with a constant regret increase. Finally, we establish a novel centralized instance-dependent lower bound for binary stable regret, elucidating the roles of the admissible gap and super-stable matching in characterizing the complexity of stable matching with bandit feedback.

@article{basu2025_2506.15926,
  title={ Competing Bandits in Matching Markets via Super Stability },
  author={ Soumya Basu },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.15926},
  year={ 2025 }
}