Showing posts with label book. Show all posts

Monday, December 1, 2025

Lucky By Design: book talk by Judd Kessler tomorrow

Mark your calendar for Tuesday, December 2, from 3:30–5 PM: Wharton Professor Judd Kessler will be visiting Stanford to deliver a talk about his new book, Lucky by Design.

Location: Gunn Building (SIEPR), Koret-Taube Conference Center (KT130)

Note: A free copy of Lucky by Design will be available for each of the first 100 attendees!

RSVP

More about the event and Lucky by Design:

Wharton professor Judd Kessler discusses his new book, “Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want.”

Judd pulls back the curtain on the hidden markets that determine who gets what in everyday life. Unlike familiar markets that you might learn about in your economics class — where what we get depends on how much we’re willing to pay — hidden markets do not rely on prices: you can’t buy your way into a better position. Instead, what you receive hinges on the rules by which the market operates, and the choices you make in them.

What are the tricks for getting reservations at the hottest restaurants, live-event tickets, job offers, and spots in elite preschools and selective colleges? What about finding a soulmate on a dating app or receiving a life-saving organ transplant? How can policymakers design these markets better?

Judd has spent a career studying and designing these very markets. Now, he reveals insights about how they work, how to maneuver in them, and how to tip the scales in your favor.

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Earlier post about this book:

Monday, August 11, 2025 Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want, by Judd Kessler

Saturday, November 15, 2025

Judd Kessler: the most helpful advice I ever got (YouTube short video)

I was charmed by this very short video featuring Judd Kessler (and I'm very grateful to whoever gave him that advice):

https://youtube.com/shorts/zBTlYwvYE2M?si=q6_vRIflWvAmMDYb

You can see his new book, Lucky By Design in the background

“Lucky by Design is that rarest of things: an economics PAGE-TURNER.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Yuck! and the long journey to a book title

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm working on the galleys of my forthcoming book, Moral Economics. This has reminded me of the long journey to a book title.

For one thing, the British title isn't exactly the same as the American title--they have different subtitles. British readers will have to open the book to discover that prostitution and organ sales are among the topics covered, while American readers can see this on the cover.

Moral Economics

My original, working title was "Controversial Markets and Repugnant Transactions," based in part on my 2007 article "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets". But I soon realized that when non-economists heard me mention that a transaction was repugnant, they thought I meant that I didn't like it and that they shouldn't either, when what I did mean was merely that some people object to it, often on moral grounds.

So for a while my working title became "Controversial Markets and Morally Contested Transactions."

That's descriptive, but clunky. So I didn't resist too much when my publisher suggested "Moral Economics," although I worried that was too cryptic, so a sub-title would be needed.

And all of this is stored in a folder with the title "Yuck" that I opened on my hard drive when I first started to think about writing a book on repugnant transactions.

Monday, October 27, 2025

New book! Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work--forthcoming!

I have a forthcoming book, (at long last) and it now even has a cover. (Note the halo:) I'm reading the galleys right now...

Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work forthcoming – May 12, 2026

also available to preorder at other fine bookstores. (I'll be happy to autograph pre-orders that are mailed to me, btw...)

"A Nobel Prize–⁠winning economist shows us why we have to deal in trade-offs when we can’t agree on what’s right and what’s wrong

"Some of the most intractable controversies in our divided society are, at bottom, about what actions and transactions should be banned. Should women and couples be able to purchase contraception, access in vitro fertilization, and end pregnancy by obtaining an abortion? Should people be able to buy marijuana? What about fentanyl? Can someone be paid to donate blood plasma, or a kidney?

"Disagreements are fierce because arguments on both sides are often made in uncompromising moral or religious terms. But in Moral Economics, Nobel Prize–winning economist Alvin E. Roth asserts that we can make progress on these and other difficult topics if we view them as markets—tools to help decide who gets what—and understand how those markets can be fine-tuned to be more functional. Markets don’t have to allow everything or ban everything. Prudent market design can find a balance between preserving people’s rights to pursue their own interests and protecting the most vulnerable from harm.

"Combining Roth’s unparalleled expertise as market design pioneer with his incisive, witty accounts of complicated issues, Moral Economics offers a powerful and innovative new framework for resolving today’s hardest controversies. "

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

U.Penn celebrates Judd Kessler's new book with a short excerpt

You can read an excerpt from the introduction to Judd Kessler's new book Lucky by Design (which came out yesterday) here:

The Hidden Markets All Around Us
October 14, 2025 • 6 min read
In an excerpt from his new book, 'Lucky by Design,' Wharton’s Judd Kessler looks at the hidden markets that determine who gets what in everyday life, and the rules that underpin them.

Monday, August 11, 2025

Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want, by Judd Kessler

Here's a great new book about how to navigate markets, by Judd Kessler, who knows his way around.

Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want– forthcoming, October 14, 2025 by Judd Kessler

"What’s the secret to scoring a reservation at a hot new restaurant? When should you enter a lottery to increase your odds of winning? Why did your neighbor’s kid get into a nearby preschool while yours didn’t? Who gets priority for a life-saving organ donation?

These outcomes are not a matter of luck. Instead, they depend on how we navigate hidden markets that arise to decide who gets what when many of us want something and there isn’t enough to go around. Every day we play in these markets, yet few of us fully understand how they work.

In familiar markets, what we get depends on how much we’re willing to pay. Hidden markets do not rely on prices: you can’t buy your way in to a better position. Instead, what you receive hinges on the rules by which the market operates, and the choices you make in them.

Judd Kessler has spent a career studying and designing these very markets. Now, he reveals the secrets of how they work, and how to maneuver in them. Whether you want to snag a coveted ticket, secure a spot in an oversubscribed college course, get better matches in the dating and job markets, do your fair share of the household chores (but no more), or more efficiently allocate your time and attention, this must-read guide will show you how to get Lucky by Design."

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Market design advice: pre-order now to be the first on your block, and to help the book.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Notes from Prague (kidney exchange, market design, and progress on a new book)

I flew back to California yesterday, after spending some time in Czechia and Italy talking about kidney exchange. Here is a video of the public talk I gave at Prague Castle. Among other things it highlights the Czech kidney exchanges with Israel. (I had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Jiri Fronek, the distinguished surgical pioneer who led the Czech side of that effort.)

https://youtu.be/jrrlNWMkQyE?feature=shared

I also had the privilege of visiting CERGE-EI (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute) where my host was Prof Štěpán Jurajda. He and I first met when we were both at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1990s.

And here's an interview with the Economic newspaper Hospodářské noviny that starts off with the optimistic notion that I may have just (largely) completed the draft of a new book:)

Zkoumá trhy, kde peníze nevládnou. Ledvinu ani lásku si za ně většinou nekoupíte, říká nobelista Alvin Roth [ He explores markets where money doesn't rule. You can't usually buy a kidney or love with it, says Nobel laureate Alvin Roth]

“Before flying from the USA to Prague, economist and Nobel laureate Alvin Roth managed to send the publisher a draft of his new book, which he is currently finishing. He calls it Controversial Markets. Between an afternoon lecture for students at the CERGE-EI Institute in Prague and an evening lecture at Prague Castle, he also found time for an interview with Hospodářské noviny, in which he outlines what his new book will be about. One of the controversial markets he deals with, for example, is the organ transplant market."

Monday, December 1, 2025

Monday, August 11, 2025 Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want, by Judd Kessler

Saturday, November 15, 2025

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Monday, October 27, 2025

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Monday, August 11, 2025

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Zkoumá trhy, kde peníze nevládnou. Ledvinu ani lásku si za ně většinou nekoupíte, říká nobelista Alvin Roth [ He explores markets where money doesn't rule. You can't usually buy a kidney or love with it, says Nobel laureate Alvin Roth]

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

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