My freshman seminar and Ph.D. class on matching: Fall 2013

ECON 26N: Who gets what? The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design

Freshman Seminar. What are markets and marketplaces? How do they work? How do they fail? How can we fix them when they¿re broken? Recently economists have become market designers to try to answer these questions. What are matching markets and why are they important? This seminar will explore examples of matching markets such as; who goes to which schools and universities? Who gets which jobs? Who gets scarce organs for transplant? Who marries whom? We'll investigate examples of recent market designs in school choice, labor markets and kidney exchange. How internet dating sites and social networking might make courtship very different for your generation than it was previous ones.

Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI | Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)

Instructors: Roth, A. (PI)

Schedule for ECON 26N

ECON 285: Matching and Market Design

This is an introduction to market design, intended mainly for second year PhD students in economics (but also open to other graduates students from around the university and to undergrads who have taken undergrad market design). It will emphasize the combined use of economic theory, experiments and empirical analysis to analyze and engineer market rules and institutions. In this first quarter we will pay particular attention to matching markets, which are those in which price doesn¿t do all of the work, and which include some kind of application or selection process. In recent years market designers have participated in the design and implementation of a number of marketplaces, and the course will emphasize the relation between theory and practice, for example in the design of labor market clearinghouses for American doctors, and school choice programs in a growing number of American cities (including New York and Boston), and the allocation of organs for transplantation. Various forms of market failure will also be discussed. Assignment: One final paper. The objective of the final paper is to study an existing market or an environment with a potential role for a market, describe the relevant market design questions, and evaluate how the current market design works and/or propose improvements on the current design.

Terms: Aut | Units: 2-5 | Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit

Instructors: Niederle, M. (PI) ; Roth, A. (PI)

Schedule for ECON 285