Evaluating assignment without transfers: A market perspective

- Any assignment can be deemed as a market outcome with possibly personalized prices.
- Personalized prices can be used to evaluate the properties of an assignment.
- A market outcome with equal prices and equal incomes is Pareto efficient and fair.
- The market perspective reveals a weakness of envy-freeness.

All (random) assignments/allocations without transfers can be considered as market outcomes with personalized prices and an equal income. Prices proportional across agents imply efficiency; common prices lead to efficiency and envy-freeness. This market perspective also reveals a weakness of envy-freeness.