Online Matching: A Brief Survey

TL;DR

This survey introduces the field of online matching, highlighting recent trends and developments in the allocation of items or tasks to agents across various online markets, with insights from multiple disciplines.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent technical and conceptual advances in online matching, serving as an introductory resource for the field.

Findings

Identification of key challenges in online matching

Overview of recent algorithmic approaches

Discussion of emerging trends and future directions

Abstract

Matching, capturing allocation of items to unit-demand buyers, or tasks to workers, or pairs of collaborators, is a central problem in economics. Indeed, the growing prevalence of matching-based markets, many of which online in nature, has motivated much research in economics, operations research, computer science, and their intersection. This brief survey is meant as an introduction to the area of online matching, with an emphasis on recent trends, both technical and conceptual.