The histories of seven regional markets for new physicians and surgeons in the United Kingdom are considered. Like the American market, these markets have experienced failures that led to the adoption of centralized market mechanisms. Because different regions employ different centralized mechanisms, these markets provide a test of the hypothesis that the success of the American market is related to the fact that it produces matches which are stable in the sense that no two agents mutually prefer to be matched to one another than to their assigned partners. Even in the more complex U.K. markets, this kind of stability plays an important role. Centralized markets that produced unstable matches in environments in which agents could act upon instabilities fared no better than the decentralized markets they replaced.

The history and organization of the membership recruitment process of American sororities is studied. Like entry-level labor markets studied previously, this process experienced failures that led to the adoption of a centralized matching procedure in which a matching is determined on the basis of preference lists submitted by the agents. Analysis of the rules of the match and of preference lists from 21 matches reveals an unstable matching procedure that gives agents incentives to behave strategically. The analysis also shows how the agents act on these incentives and how the resulting strategic behavior has contributed to the longevity of the matching system and to the stability of the resulting matches.

The history and organization of the membership recruitment process of American sororities is studied. Like entry-level labor markets studied previously, this process experienced failures that led to the adaptation of a centralized matching procedure in which a matching is determined on the basis of preference lists submitted by the agents. Analysis of the rules of the match and of preference lists from twenty-one matches reveals an unstable matching procedure that gives agents incentives to behave strategically. The analysis also shows how the agents act on these incentives and how the resulting strategic behavior has contributed to the longevity of the matching system and to the stability of the resulting matches.

In an experiment comparing related two-person bargaining and multiperson market environments in Israel, Japan, the United States, and Yugoslavia, market outcomes converged to equilibrium everywhere, and there were no payoff-relevant differences among countries. However, bargaining outcomes were everywhere different from the equilibrium predictions (both in observed agreements and in the substantial frequency of observed disagreements), and substantial differences were observed among countries. Because of the way the experiment was designed, the fact that the market behavior is the same in all countries supports the hypothesis that the differences in bargaining behavior among countries are not due to differences in languages, currencies, or experiments but may tentatively be attributed to cultural differences.