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.