Competitive equilibria in Shapley-Scarf markets with couples

Abstract

We investigate the existence and properties of competitive equilibrium in Shapley-Scarf markets involving an exogenous partition of individuals into couples. The presence of couples generates preference interdependencies which cause existence problems. For both cases of transferable and nontransferable income among partners, we establish properties for preferences that are sufficient for the existence of an equilibrium. Moreover, we show that these properties define a maximal preference domain. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.