Frederick Hillier (1936-2026)

 I never took a course from Fred Hillier when I was a PhD student in the Department of Operations Research at Stanford from 1971-73, but as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois from 1974 I taught undergraduate OR from the introductory OR textbook by Hillier and Lieberman.

Here's his Stanford obituary:

Influential textbook author Frederick S. Hillier dies at 89
Hillier’s work shaped operations research theory and practice at Stanford and beyond, with his textbooks introducing the field to generations of learners worldwide.

"Frederick S. Hillier, professor emeritus of operations research in Stanford Engineering’s Department of Management Science and Engineering, passed away on Jan. 9, 2026. He was 89.
...
"Hillier was best known for co-authoring Introduction to Operations Research, first published in 1967. “His textbook played a major role in defining what operations research is,” said Peter W. Glynn, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford. “It helped people in adjacent fields understand what the field is and how it works.” 

...

"When he arrived at Stanford, Hillier was assigned Gerald J. Lieberman as his freshman adviser. Lieberman introduced Hillier to the emerging field of operations research and became Hillier’s undergraduate mentor, doctoral advisor, department chair, and eventually his co-author.

...

"Following Lieberman’s encouragement, Hillier stayed at Stanford for graduate school. He earned an MS in statistics in 1959 and a PhD in operations research in 1961. He joined the Stanford faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering that same year.

...

"Hillier retired in 1996 and continued revising his textbooks into his late 80s. The 11th edition of Introduction to Operations Research was published in 2020, and he completed the manuscript for the 12th edition in 2023." 

Zhang Xuefeng (1984-2026), guided Chinese families through the college admissions process

 A Chinese college-admissions influencer has died, who helped families choose which colleges and majors to rank, after they received the results from the gaokao, the national admissions exam.

The NYT has the story:

China Mourned an Education Influencer. The Grief Was a Quiet Revolt.
Zhang Xuefeng helped people navigate the country’s unforgiving higher education system. The public outpouring after his death was a quiet rebuke to the punishing process.  By Li Yuan

 "Zhang Xuefeng became famous in China for telling students and their parents what few educators would: which majors were useless, which careers were dead ends and which dreams ordinary families could not afford.

“Knock out your children if they want to study journalism,” he famously said.

“The humanities all lead to service work, and service work, in one word, is sucking up” to clients.

...
"But when Mr. Zhang died last month, at 41, something uncommon in today’s China happened. In a country where large-scale, spontaneous public emotion is rarely tolerated, tens of thousands of people from all over the country showed up at his memorial service in the eastern city of Suzhou. They stood in line for hours to pay their respects, some carrying flowers, one clutching a college admission letter. On the Chinese internet, posts and videos about Mr. Zhang and his death drew more than six billion views in a single day, according to a media monitoring firm.

...

"The gratitude directed at Mr. Zhang, who had 27 million followers on the short-video platform Douyin, reflected the fears of ordinary Chinese families trying to navigate an increasingly opaque and unforgiving education system. The extraordinary mourning after his death revealed how much of contemporary China is living with that anxiety.

"Students and parents thanked him for helping them navigate the high-stakes process of choosing a college major in China. Through livestreams and consulting sessions, he explained which majors led to stable jobs, which industries were declining and which professional certificates were worth pursuing — information readily available to families with connections or advanced education but far harder for everyone else to find. 

...

"For decades, the general college entrance exam, known in Chinese as the gaokao, was widely seen as a pathway to changing one’s fate; it was brutally competitive but capable of delivering upward mobility. As universities expanded and the job market deteriorated, that promise weakened. Getting into college became easier. Turning a degree into security did not.
...

"In many provinces, families have less than two weeks between getting the results of the exam and the deadline to apply to college. In that time, they need to make sense of hundreds of majors, universities and career paths. 

...

"The families who turn to consultants like Mr. Zhang are not, for the most part, China’s elite. But neither are they the poorest. Wang described his clients as families in the broad middle: small-business owners, office workers, skilled laborers and lower-level state employees. They often have money to pay for guidance but lack the social capital or institutional knowledge needed to navigate the system confidently on their own. " 

Stanford remembers John Roberts (1945-2026)

 Economist John Roberts, leader in organizational research, dies at 80
The Stanford professor’s work brought game theory to management practices in firms around the world. 

"Donald John Roberts, the John H. Scully Professor of Economics, Strategic Management and International Business, Emeritus, died Jan. 23 after a long illness. He was 80.

"His start at Stanford GSB was carefully cultivated. When economics professor Robert Wilson began growing the economics faculty at the business school in the late 1970s, he had already recruited an impressive group of young scholars. But he needed someone to shape the intellectual direction of the program.

"Wilson believed Roberts was that person.

At the time, Roberts was a young professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, already known for his teaching credentials and research in economic theory. Wilson persuaded him to join Stanford in 1980, bringing him west to help build what would become one of the most influential economics groups in academia.

“John played a central role in shaping the direction of the economics group in those years,” says Wilson, the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus, and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. “He had a remarkable ability to see where an idea could lead and to push it until the logic became clear.”

"Roberts remained at the school until his retirement in 2012. At Stanford GSB, he helped lead the doctoral program, mentored younger faculty, and played a central role in recruiting a generation of economists whose work reshaped the field. His four decades of research helped transform how economists study organizations and their management, bringing rigorous economic theory to questions about how firms function internally.

...
“Besides his scholarship, John was an institution builder who helped shape the intellectual culture of the school,” says David M. Kreps, the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus. “John helped create an environment where both ambitious research and professional education thrived. He was the personification of balanced excellence.” 

Steven Pinker on Robert Trivers (1943-2026)

 Pinker writes about how Trivers introduced game-theoretic ideas into evolutionary biology (with genes as the players, and selection into subsequent generations as the payoffs). It's a well written tribute.

The Many Roots of Our Suffering: Reflections on Robert Trivers (1943–2026)  by Steven Pinker 

"Trivers’s contributions belong in the special category of ideas that are obvious once they are explained, yet eluded great minds for ages; simple enough to be stated in a few words, yet with implications that have busied scientists for decades. In an astonishing creative burst from 1971 to 1975, Trivers wrote five seminal essays that invoked patterns of genetic overlap to explain each of the major human relationships: male with female, parent with child, sibling with sibling, partner with partner, and a person with himself or herself." 

Ed Peskowitz (1944-2026)

 After an eventful life, with major accomplishments in business and philanthropy, Ed Peskowitz succumbed to kidney failure this week.  I met him only after he had turned to philanthropy, and after he had received a kidney transplant.

Here's his obit in the Washington Jewish Week: 

Edwin Peskowitz 

"Ed was an extremely generous man who touched the lives of many. Over the course of his life, he and his wife supported local educational initiatives, such as the I Have a Dream Foundation and the SEED Public Charter School. Ed was passionate about promoting Middle Eastern peace and supported numerous causes in the region aimed at building understanding between various cultures and religions and he created the Friendship Games to encourage this among young athletes. He was a supporter of the Anti-Defamation League, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the University of Maryland.

Ed suffered from renal disease and was given the gift of life by an altruistic kidney donation in 2019. Ed devoted the last years of his life to creating and supporting philanthropic efforts, such as the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant Collaborative and Kidneys for Communities, to encourage living kidney donation and improve matches between potential donors and recipients." 

 

Joe Halpern (1953-2026)

 Joseph Halpern was an early explorer of the interface between computer science and game theory.  

Here's his funeral home obit: 

Joseph Y. Halpern
May 29, 1953 — February 13, 2026 

"Joe spent nearly 30 years as a professor of computer science at Cornell, and was considered a pioneer in his field. He was famous for having an impressive influence in a wide variety of topics, working extensively at the intersection of computer science, philosophy, and game theory. His work has reshaped the way we think about topics such as reasoning about knowledge and causality. He is the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Gödel Prize and Dijkstra Prize, the co-author of three highly influential books, six patents, and over 300 papers." 

 

His student Daphne Koller writes:

In Memoriam: Joe Halpern

"Yesterday, my PhD advisor, Joe Halpern, passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He was a brilliant mathematician, a transformative mentor, and a truly wonderful human being.

"Joe possessed the rare ability to identify unusual, deeply interesting problems and solve them with breathtaking elegance and rigor. He was also a master communicator who could distill the most complex concepts into simple, straightforward truths—a skill I strive to emulate every day." 

 

Here's his Google Scholar Page: Jospeh Halpern 

John Henry Kagel (1942-2026), an incomparable experimental economist

 John Kagel will be buried this morning,  January 7, at  New Tifereth Israel Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. He passed away yesterday.  I don't know the details, but my sense is that he hadn't been well for a while. He was 83.

In his prime, John was the best experimental economist in the world.

He was also my friend, colleague, coauthor, co-editor, and all-around mensch and role model. He was full of life.  

Words fail. 

Here's his Google scholar page. 

In 2023 the journal Experimental Economics had a special issue in John's honor: here's the Introduction. 

May his memory be a blessing. 

The year in passings

 It's been a long year in many ways.  Here are the partings noted on this blog:

Sunday, December 21, 2025 Michel Callon (1945–2025): A life with passion for economies, in J. of Cultural Economy

     Saturday, August 30, 2025 Michel Callon (1945-2025)

Friday, December 12, 2025 Kate Ho (1972-2025)

Sunday, December 7, 2025 Tom Stoppard (1937 –2025)

Friday, December 5, 2025 Ludwig Amadeus Minelli (1932 – 2025), leader of Dignitas assisted suicide organization 

Thursday, December 4, 2025 Scientists and policy makers with feet of clay [James Watson (1928-2025)]

Monday, November 3, 2025 David Gale (1921-2008) remembered, with a (belated) 100th birthday volume

Sunday, October 12, 2025 John Gurdon (1933-2025)

Saturday, October 4, 2025 Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

 Thursday, July 3, 2025 Workshop in Memory of YingHua He, July 7-8

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members (Ed Leamer)

Wednesday, April 16, 2025 Pat Bajari (1969-2025)

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 Danny Kahneman's last interview, and its backstory

Saturday, March 15, 2025 Danny Kahneman's final decision

Friday, February 28, 2025 Kevin Sontheimer (1938-2025)

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 Donald Shoup (1938-2025) led the war on (too much) free parking

Monday, February 3, 2025 Civil service in the United States, RIP (1883-2025)

Monday, January 27, 2025 Derek Humphry, Pivotal Figure in Right-to-Die Movement, (1930-2025) 

Thursday, January 2, 2025 Diane Coleman, Fierce Foe of the Right-to-Die Movement, (1953-2024)  

Michel Callon (1945–2025): A life with passion for economies, in J. of Cultural Economy

Here's an appreciation of the great economic sociologist:

 Michel Callon (1945–2025): A life with passion for economies
Koray Caliskan &Alexandre Mallard, Journal of Cultural Economy, Published online: 15 Dec 2025 https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2025.2595423 

 "Readers of the Journal of Cultural Economy will likely remember Michel Callon for the remarkable line of inquiry into markets that he initiated in the 2000s. Yet to recall how he approached the economy throughout his intellectual journey – and how, in doing so, he transformed our very understanding of economies – is a good way to honor an intellectual beacon of our times."

 ########

Earlier:

Saturday, August 30, 2025 Michel Callon (1945-2025)

 

Kate Ho (1972-2025)

 Kate Ho has passed away, tragically early.  I met her when she was a grad student at Harvard, who worked with Ariel Pakes.

Here's the Econometric Society announcement:

In Memoriam: Kate Ho 

"We are deeply saddened by the passing of Kate Ho, the John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy at Princeton University and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Kate was a brilliant IO economist and scholar whose impact on the profession will resonate for many years to come.

Among her numerous achievements, Kate delivered the 2021 Fisher-Schultz Lecture of the Econometric Society and received the 2020 Frisch Medal for the best applied paper published in Econometrica over the previous four years, recognizing her pathbreaking work on contracting and insurer competition in health care markets. She served as Co-Editor of Econometrica from 2021 to 2025, contributing with extraordinary dedication and insight. She was also an elected member of the Council of the Econometric Society from 2021 to 2024 and served on many other Society committees. Beyond her professional excellence, Kate was an exceptionally kind, thoughtful, and collaborative colleague. We will miss her deeply.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to Kate’s family, friends, colleagues, and all who were fortunate enough to know her." 

Tom Stoppard (1937 –2025)

 Tom Stoppard, the great English playwright, passed away last week. I saw many of his plays, including his last one, about his apparently late in life discovery that he was Jewish, and that his immediate family had fled Czechoslovakia ahead of  the Nazis, while most of the rest had perished, with a few exceptions.

The play tells the story of three generations of assimilated Jews. You, the audience, of course know how it will end, but they don't, and they are optimistic that their current troubles will soon pass.  It's an eerie feeling to watch that play amidst the world's current uncertainties. 

The NYT tells his story through that final play.

When Tom Stoppard Confronted His Background in His Final Play
The playwright, who learned about his Jewish heritage late in life, addressed it in the Tony Award-winning drama “Leopoldstadt.”   By Marc Tracy

"Stoppard’s final play, too, contained characters whose fates were tragically preordained. The rest is silence." 

Ludwig Amadeus Minelli (5 December 1932 – 29 November 2025), leader of Dignitas assisted suicide organization

 The Washington Post has the story

Ludwig Minelli, founder of leading assisted suicide group, ends his life at 92.  Dignitas, which Mr. Minelli founded, has helped thousands of people to die, some from countries where assisted suicide is illegal.  By Maham Javaid

 "Ludwig Minelli, who became a leader of the death-with-dignity movement as the founder of Dignitas, a Swiss organization with more than 10,000 members that provides and advocates for access to assisted suicide, died Saturday, ending his life through the process he helped promote. He was 92 and would have celebrated his 93rd birthday on Friday.

...

"Mr. Minelli, a lawyer specializing in human rights, was the general secretary of Dignitas, which since 1998 has helped thousands of people from around the world, including from countries where assisted suicide is illegal, to die. 

...

"Mr. Minelli and his group claimed responsibility for major milestones in the field of assisted death. In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights confirmed the right and freedom of a competent individual to decide on the manner and the time of their own end of life. In 2022, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared a law that made providing professional assistance in suicide impossible in Germany was unconstitutional. The same year, Austria also revoked a blanket prohibition on assisted suicide.

"In recent years, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have shifted their stance on assisted dying.

"Dignitas has participated in nearly 4,200 accompanied suicides since Mr. Minelli founded the group in 1998, the group reported in 2024. More than a third of those people lived in Germany, and there were over 600 people each from France and Britain. The group says it has more than 10,000 members. "

#########

Here is the statement/obituary from Dignitas: Passing of a pioneer and warrior 

Scientists and policy makers with feet of clay

 A recent article in The Lancet talks about the checkered career of the late James Watson (1928-2025), who participated in great science (the DNA double helix), wrote about it in popular terms that had some vulgar elements (The Double Helix), and later in life had troubling, unscientific thoughts on race and gender. This made me think of yesterday's post, which touched on the Statement from the American Economic Association concerning Larry Summers. 

Here's the Lancet piece: 

James D Watson: a cautionary tale by Philip Ball  

It begins:

"There was always going to be a complex reckoning in the obituaries of James D Watson (1928–2025), the American geneticist who co-discovered the structure of DNA. For many years, Watson was one of the most influential figures in modern biology—Director, then President and Chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York, USA, from 1968 to 2007, and the key motive force behind the Human Genome Project. He was also notorious for his attitudes towards women, especially Rosalind Franklin (1920–58), and for his comments on race, which led to a precipitous fall from grace in the past two decades. Watson enjoyed playing the role of provocateur, proudly claiming that his Chicago heritage made him inclined to speak his mind frankly no matter who it upset. The popular image of Watson now is of a great scientist who held controversial views. That, however, lets everyone too easily off the hook." 

 And here are the two concluding paragraphs:

"But this is also a cautionary tale about how science comports itself. Watson's 2007 interview was hardly a revelation to those who knew him; he had been making bigoted comments for years. In the Esquire interview in that same year he said “some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified”. And yet there had been a continual turning of a blind eye: he was seen as “outspoken”, “colourful”, and “controversial”. In Watson's heyday, the scientific community tended to indulge such behaviour so long as the perpetrator was sufficiently eminent. Even after the disastrous interview in The Sunday Times, some considered Watson's reputation should shield him from repercussions. When a talk at the Science Museum in London was cancelled in 2007, Richard Dawkins complained about “the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and intolerant ‘thought police’, of one of the most distinguished scientists of our time”. It can sometimes look as though the biggest crime in science is to create an unseemly fuss, especially on a topic deemed “political”. That Elon Musk, who is a fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), gave a Nazi salute, or that Stephen Hawking FRS attended soirées on Jeffrey Epstein's private island, are seen primarily as sources of embarrassment best passed over quickly.
 

"Perhaps times are changing. When Watson turned up at the event marking the 75th anniversary of Schrödinger's What Is Life? in Dublin, Ireland, and was given an impromptu toast by the organisers, there were dumbfounded glances all around the tables at the thought that we were expected to raise our glasses. Scientists are starting to confront difficult behaviour—but we still have some way to go before acknowledging that it can taint not only the practice of science but also its substance too. "

########## 

 We have had to think about fine figures with feet of clay at least since Daniel (33-34) interpreted for King  Nebuchadnezzar his dream about a statue with "a head of fine gold, its breast and its arms were of silver, its belly and thighs were of copper.  Its legs were of iron, and its feet were partly of iron and partly of clay."

 

David Gale (1921-2008) remembered, with a (belated) 100th birthday volume

 David Gale (1921-2008) was honored recently with the publication of a volume commissioned at the time of his 100th birthday.  The editors remark that his remarkable career began with the completion of his PhD in mathematics at Princeton in 1949.

Mathematics, Game Theory and Economics: Provisional Observations on David Gale's 75-Year Career (1949–2024) 1: Preface to a 100th Birthday Anniversary …
MA Khan, AJ Zaslavski  

 

 

 ...

 

John Gurdon (1933-2025)

One hope for a future free of the need for human organ transplants is that it might become possible to re-initiate the process by which embryos originally grow their own kidneys from stem cells, i.e. from cells that are "pluripotent,"  in that they retain the possibility  of growing into any of the organs with which we humans come originally equipped.

Great progress is being made in that direction, although  obviating the need for transplants is still only a distant hope.   I had the good fortune to meet two of the pioneers of those efforts, in Stockholm in 2012, when that year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent"  

John has now died, at the age of 92.  I hope he  derived great satisfaction from the fact that his pioneering work is continuing to lead to steady progress.

 Here's his obituary from the Guardian, which contains an anecdote that I recall he shared in Stockholm. His story should give comfort to students unappreciated by teachers who don't realize that students retain a good deal of pluripotency regarding what kind of adults and scholars they will become.

 Sir John Gurdon obituary. Biologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering that adult cells can be reprogrammed.  byGeorgina Ferry

 " His career narrowly missed being driven off course by a report from his biology teacher, placing him last in his year and dismissing his idea of becoming a scientist as a “sheer waste of time, both on his part, and of those who have to teach him.”

Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

Iconoclastic scientists not only do novel science, but they do science in novel ways. Jane Goodall also communicated to a broad audience, and became an advocate as well as an observer.

 Nature publishes an appreciation of her life and work and its impact on science itself, and scientists.

Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science.  The primatologist challenged what it meant to be a scientist. By Rachel Fieldhouse & Mohana Basu

"Goodall is best known for her work with chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. She was the first to discover that chimpanzees made and used tools1. She went on to become an advocate for conservation, human rights and animal welfare, including stopping the use of animals in medical research."

######### 

 Here's the NY Times obit: ( which mentions some of her recognitions, including an unusual one)

Jane Goodall, Who Chronicled the Social Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91. Her discoveries as a primatologist in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behave in the wild were hailed as “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.” By Keith Schneider 

"Her many awards include the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, presented in 1995, and the Templeton Prize, given in 2021. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II named her a dame of the British Empire. In January, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

...

"In July 2022, Mattel released a Jane Goodall doll as part of its Barbie-branded Inspiring Women series." 

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

 Hans Kjellberg  informs me that the eminent sociologist of markets, Michel Callon has died. Kjellberg writes about his long collaboration with Callon, including an interval during the Covid pandemic that involved the three of us:

"A more recent collaboration was the essay “The design and performation of markets: a discussion” that I curated between Alvin Roth and Michel for a special issue of AMS Review on theorizing markets (with Riikka Murto). I had spoken to Michel about contributing an essay to the issue, but when Alvin suggested that they do something together, Michel very quickly accepted this intellectual challenge. Their exchange took place at the height of the pandemic, and I acted as the go-between and facilitator of their (mostly email-based) exchange of ideas. It developed into a great example of what is needed in contemporary society: two intellectual giants coming from very different starting points engaging in an open and earnest conversation to try to understand each other’s point of view. If you have not yet read it, have a look at: https://lnkd.in/dBxJBbtW."

Here's the obit from the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation:

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

"Michel Callon passed away on July 28, 2025. 

...

"With an interest in economics (and economy) since his early days, Michel Callon developed a keen understanding of markets in the late 1990s, focusing on the role of scientific knowledge and technical devices. The 1998 collective volume he edited, The Laws of the Markets, paved the way for an original analysis of market phenomena that many researchers in France and other countries would follow. In Market Devices (2007), Callon, Yuval Millo, and Fabian Muniesa compiled a collection of texts emblematic of the variety of devices used in the organization of markets. In Market in the Making (2021), he analyses how market arrangements work and questions their integration into contemporary society. "

Here are all my blog posts mentioning  Callon.

Workshop in Memory of YingHua He, July 7-8

 The Paris School of Economics, the Center for Economic and Statistical Research, and the Toulouse School of Economics are organizing a Workshop in Memory of YingHua He , July 7-8, in Paris and online.

The academic program, for July 7-8 is here:

July 7

09:00-10:30 – Session 1

• Bernard Salanié (Columbia University in the City of New York)
  Empirical Methods for Matching with Transferable Utility: A Progress Report
  With Pierre-André Chiappori and Linh Nguyen
• Hessel Oosterbeek (University of Amsterdam)
  Using principal stratification to analyze repeated treatment assignment
  With Nadine Ketel, Edwin Leuven and Bas van der Klaauw

10:30-11:00 – Coffee break

11:00-12:30 – Session 2

• Marek Pycia (University of Zurich)
  Ordinal and Cardinal Allocation Mechanisms: A Progress Report
• Antonio Miralles (Università degli Studi di Messina)
  Within Public School Segregation: A Simple Model and an Application to Italian Schools

12:30-14:00 – Lunch

14:00-15:30 – Session 3

• Arnaud Maurel (Duke University)
  Sequential College Admission Mechanisms and Off-Platform Options
  With Olivier De Groote, Anaïs Fabre and Margaux Luflade
• Chao Fu (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  Information, Match Quality, and Priority Rules in Student-School Assignment
  With Dong Woo Hahm and Minseon Park

15:30-16:00 – Coffee break

16:00-17:30 – Session 4

• Dorothea Kübler (WZB Berlin Social Science Center)
  Fairness in Matching Markets: Experimental Evidence
  With Tobias König (Lydia Mechtenberg)
• Yan Chen (University of Michigan)
  Social Media and Job Market Success: A Field Experiment on Twitter
  With Jingyi Qiu (University of Michigan), Alain Cohn (University of Michigan) and Alvin Roth (Stanford University)
  

 July 8:

8:30-09:00 – Welcoming coffee

09:00-10:30 – Session 5

• Shruti Sinha (Amazon)
  Identification and estimation in many-to-one two-sided matching without transfers
  With YingHua He (Rice) and Xiaoting Sun (Simon Fraser University)
• Estelle Cantillon (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
  Modifying priorities for more equitable outcomes in England
  With Simon Burgess (Bristol), Mariagrazia Cavallo (University of Luxembourg) and Ellen Greaves (Exeter)

10:30-11:00 – Coffee break

11:00-12:30 – Session 6

• Olivier De Groote (TSE)
  Matching disadvantaged children to day care: Evidence from a centralized platform
  With Minyoung Rho
• Fuhito Kojima (The University of Tokyo)
  How to Integrate Fragmented Matching Markets for Welfare Improvement

12:30-14:00 – Lunch

####### 

 Yinghua died on July 2, 2024. May his memory be a blessing.

Thursday, July 4, 2024 YingHua He 何 英华 has died.

National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members (4 economists: Steve Berry, Parag Pathak, Ed Leamer, and Sergiu Hart)

 Congratulations to all the new members, and to the four newly elected economists.

Of note: One of the economists is unusually young for this distinction, and one, who was not, passed away between the beginning and end of this year's election process.

National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members

"The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 120 members and 30 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

 ...

Berry, Steven T.; David Swensen Professor, Department of Economics, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

...

Pathak, Parag A.; Class of 1922 Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

...

Elected posthumously to the Academy:

Leamer, Edward E.; professor in economics and statistics, Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles

...

Newly elected international member

Hart, Sergiu; professor emeritus of mathematics and economics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)

Pat Bajari (1969-2025)

 Pat Bajari has died at 55.  As Amazon's chief economist from 2010-2023, he oversaw a revolution in the labor market for economists, making Amazon at least for a time the leading employer of new PhD economists, and firmly establishing them among Amazon's many product lines.

He also taught at Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Minnesota and U. of Washington.

There are a whole lot of moving tributes to him at the memorial Kudaboard: Celebrating Pat Bajari. He apparently touched a lot of lives.

 Here's an old CNN story:

 Amazon gets an edge with its secret squad of PhD economists 
By Lydia DePillis, CNN Business, Wed March 13, 2019

"In the past few years, Amazon has hired more than 150 PhD economists

...

"The architect of Amazon’s massive team of data crunchers is Pat Bajari

...

"At other companies, economists are often clustered in a small team, but at Amazon, they are integrated into many teams across the company. In a glossy recruiting brochure, Amazon describes how its economists help build risk models for lending to third-party sellers, advise on product design and engagement tracking for devices like Alexa and Kindle, help target customers for its booming cloud services business, and forecast server capacity needs for the consumer website."

##########

Here's the obit from U. Minnesota:

Remembering Patrick L. Bajari (1969-2025),  April 15, 2025

"Pat Bajari, a major figure in the economics profession who was deeply connected to Minnesota Economics, tragically passed away on Monday at age 55 after a battle with cancer. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family.

"Pat was born and raised in Minnesota. He completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, earning BS degrees in Economics and Mathematics in 1992 and his PhD in Economics in 1997. His academic career included faculty positions at Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and Michigan before he returned in 2006 to join the Minnesota faculty. In 2010, he went on leave to become Chief Economist at Amazon, eventually making the move permanent. In Pat’s words, “...when I saw the data wave blowing up in tech, I knew I had to stay and be a part of it. I gave up tenure and dove all in.” He played a transformational role in leading the emergence of tech-economics in industry—one of the major developments in economics in recent years. In 2023, he became Chief Economist at Keystone."