Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Alex Tabarrok reviews Who Gets What and Why in the WSJ

Who Gets What and Why is reviewed very generously by Alex Tabarrok in the Wall Street Journal :

Matchmaker, Make Me a Market--In some markets, price isn’t the determining factor. You can choose to go to Harvard, but Harvard has to choose to accept you first. (ungated link here if the one above doesn't work...)
By ALEX TABARROK, June 15, 2015 7:18 p.m. ET

Here's his first paragraph:
"The scientific pretensions of economics have been seriously questioned in recent years. Macroeconomists failed to predict the financial crisis and then failed to agree on either the causes or the solutions. It pained me when even my mother began to wonder whether economists were as useful as dentists. Alvin Roth’s “Who Gets What—and Why” is the book that I shall give to mom to redeem my profession."

And here's his final paragraph:
"“Who Gets What—and Why” is a pleasure to read. It’s also a pleasure to discover that rare species, a humble economist. Humble but useful."

(I enjoyed reading what he had to say in between, too--color me flattered:)

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And here are Tabarrok's comments on his review, in a blog post in MR:

The Hidden World of Matchmaking and Market Design

by  on June 16, 2015 at 7:28 am
- See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/06/the-hidden-world-of-matchmaking-and-market-design.html#sthash.5ktW1SN4.dpuf

"One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that Roth has created a new typology of market failure but a very different way of addressing such market failures. Read the whole review for more"

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