50th Anniversary of Mathematics of Operations Research (and 50 papers, one for each year)

 MOR is a journal that published its first issue only two years after I finished my Ph.D., and Bob Aumann was the first editor of its Game Theory section. The 50 papers selected to mark its 50th anniversary, one for each year, are something of a history of operations research since 1976.

 The 1981 paper is Roger Myerson's famous paper on auctions.

I submitted my 1982 paper to MOR only after it was rejected by Chicago's Journal of Political Economy, with a letter from the editor, George Stigler, saying that the only economics in the paper was in the title. (He meant that market clearing in the model wasn't achieved by price adjustment.)  Matching markets have become a significant part of economics since then...

Editor’s Comments on the 50th Anniversary of Mathematics of Operations Research
Katya Scheinberg
Published Online:28 Jan 2026https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2026.50th.v51.n1
 

"As we proudly celebrate the 50th anniversary of the journal Mathematics of Operations Research (MOR), we look back at its history and how it reflects the evolution of the field itself.

"The senior editors have prepared a list of 50 papers—one for each year—to represent this history. These papers are but a very small selection from an outstanding collection of contributions published by the journal over the past five decades. "

Augmented Lagrangians and Applications of the Proximal Point Algorithm in Convex Programming

RT Rockafellar

Mathematics of Operations Research 1976 1(2):97–116

New Finite Pivoting Rules for the Simplex Method

RG Bland

Mathematics of Operations Research 1977 2(2):103–107

Best Algorithms for Approximating the Maximum of a Submodular Set Function

GL Nemhauser, LA Wolsey

Mathematics of Operations Research 1978 3(3):177–188

Mathematical Properties of the Banzhaf Power Index

P Dubey, LS Shapley

Mathematics of Operations Research 1979 4(2):99–131

Some Useful Functions for Functional Limit Theorems

W Whitt

Mathematics of Operations Research 1980 5(1):67–85

Optimal Auction Design

RB Myerson

Mathematics of Operations Research 1981 6(1):58–73

The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives

AE Roth

Mathematics of Operations Research 1982 7(4):617–628

Integer Programming with a Fixed Number of Variables

HW Lenstra Jr

Mathematics of Operations Research 1983 8(4):538–548

Lipschitz Behavior of Solutions to Convex Minimization Problems

J-P Aubin

Mathematics of Operations Research 1984 9(1):87–111

Distributional Strategies for Games with Incomplete Information

PR Milgrom, RJ Weber

Mathematics of Operations Research 1985 10(4):619–632

Clique Tree Inequalities and the Symmetric Travelling Salesman Problem

M Grötschel, WR Pulleyblank

Mathematics of Operations Research 1986 11(4):537–569

Minkowski’s Convex Body Theorem and Integer Programming

R Kannan

Mathematics of Operations Research 1987 12(3):415–440

Cooling Schedules for Optimal Annealing

B Hajek

Mathematics of Operations Research 1988 13(2):311–329

Markov Chains with Rare Transitions and Simulated Annealing

JN Tsitsiklis

Mathematics of Operations Research 1989 14(1):70–90

Newton’s Method for B-Differentiable Equations

J-S Pang

Mathematics of Operations Research 1990 15(2):311–341

Scenarios and Policy Aggregation in Optimization Under Uncertainty

RT Rockafellar, RJ-B Wets

Mathematics of Operations Research 1991 16(1):119–147

The Generalized Basis Reduction Algorithm

L Lovász, HE Scarf

Mathematics of Operations Research 1992 17(3):751–764

On Adaptive-Step Primal-Dual Interior-Point Algorithms for Linear Programming

S Mizuno, MJ Todd, Y Ye

Mathematics of Operations Research 1993 18(4):964–981

A Polynomial Time Algorithm for Counting Integral Points in Polyhedra When the Dimension Is Fixed

AI Barvinok

Mathematics of Operations Research 1994 19(4):769–779

Fast Approximation Algorithms for Fractional Packing and Covering Problems

SA Plotkin, DB Shmoys, É Tardos

Mathematics of Operations Research 1995 20(2):257–301

Rounding of Polytopes in the Real Number Model of Computation

LG Khachiyan

Mathematics of Operations Research 1996 21(2):307–320

Self-Scaled Barriers and Interior-Point Methods for Convex Programming

YE Nesterov, MJ Todd

Mathematics of Operations Research 1997 22(1):1–42

Robust Convex Optimization

A Ben-Tal, A Nemirovski

Mathematics of Operations Research 1998 23(4):769–805

The Flatness Theorem for Nonsymmetric Convex Bodies via the Local Theory of Banach Spaces

W Banaszczyk, AE Litvak, A Pajor, SJ Szarek

Mathematics of Operations Research 1999 24(3):728–750

Mathematical Programs with Complementarity Constraints: Stationarity, Optimality, and Sensitivity

H Scheel, S Scholtes

Mathematics of Operations Research 2000 25(1):1–22

A Weak-to-Strong Convergence Principle for Fejér-Monotone Methods in Hilbert Spaces

HH Bauschke, PL Combettes

Mathematics of Operations Research 2001 26(2):248–264

The Complexity of Decentralized Control of Markov Decision Processes

DS Bernstein, R Givan, N Immerman, S Zilberstein

Mathematics of Operations Research 2002 27(4):819–840

A Comparison of the Sherali-Adams, Lovász-Schrijver, and Lasserre Relaxations for 0–1 Programming

M Laurent

Mathematics of Operations Research 2003 28(3):470–496

Selfish Routing in Capacitated Networks

JR Correa, AS Schulz, NE Stier-Moses

Mathematics of Operations Research 2004 29(4):961–976

Robust Dynamic Programming

GN Iyengar

Mathematics of Operations Research 2005 30(2):257–280

Integer Polynomial Optimization in Fixed Dimension

JA De Loera, R Hemmecke, M Köppe, R Weismantel

Mathematics of Operations Research 2006 31(1):147–153

Subsolutions of an Isaacs Equation and Efficient Schemes for Importance Sampling

P Dupuis, H Wang

Mathematics of Operations Research 2007 32(3):723–757

Facets of Two-Dimensional Infinite Group Problems

SS Dey, J-P Richard

Mathematics of Operations Research 2008 33(1):140–166

Minimal Valid Inequalities for Integer Constraints

V Borozan, G Cornuéjols

Mathematics of Operations Research 2009 34(3):538–546

Proximal Alternating Minimization and Projection Methods for Nonconvex Problems: An Approach Based on the Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz Inequality

H Attouch, J Bolte, P Redont, A Soubeyran

Mathematics of Operations Research 2010 35(2):438–457

The Simplex and Policy-Iteration Methods Are Strongly Polynomial for the Markov Decision Problem with a Fixed Discount Rate

Y Ye

Mathematics of Operations Research 2011 36(4):593–603

Online Stochastic Matching: Online Actions Based on Offline Statistics

VH Manshadi, S Oveis Gharan, A Saberi

Mathematics of Operations Research 2012 37(4):559–573

Robust Markov Decision Processes

W Wiesemann, D Kuhn, B Rustem

Mathematics of Operations Research 2013 38(1):153–183

Learning to Optimize via Posterior Sampling

D Russo, B Van Roy

Mathematics of Operations Research 2014 39(4):1221–1243

On the Convergence of Decomposition Methods for Multistage Stochastic Convex Programs

P Girardeau, V Leclere, AB Philpott

Mathematics of Operations Research 2015 40(1):130–145

Learning in Games via Reinforcement and Regularization

P Mertikopoulos, WH Sandholm

Mathematics of Operations Research 2016 41(4):1297–1324

A Descent Lemma Beyond Lipschitz Gradient Continuity: First-Order Methods Revisited and Applications

HH Bauschke, J Bolte, M Teboulle

Mathematics of Operations Research 2017 42(2):330–348

Error Bounds, Quadratic Growth, and Linear Convergence of Proximal Methods

D Drusvyatskiy, AS Lewis

Mathematics of Operations Research 2018 43(3):919–948

Quantifying Distributional Model Risk via Optimal Transport

J Blanchet, K Murthy

Mathematics of Operations Research 2019 44(2):565–600

Characterization, Robustness, and Aggregation of Signed Choquet Integrals

RD Wang, YR Wei, GE Willmot

Mathematics of Operations Research 2020 45(3):993–1015

Statistics of Robust Optimization: A Generalized Empirical Likelihood Approach

JC Duchi, PW Glynn, H Namkoong

Mathematics of Operations Research 2021 46(3):946–969

Entropy Regularization for Mean Field Games with Learning

X Guo, R Xu, T Zariphopoulou

Mathematics of Operations Research 2022 47(4):3239–3260

Distributionally Robust Stochastic Optimization with Wasserstein Distance

R Gao, A Kleywegt

Mathematics of Operations Research 2023 48(2):603–655

A Stochastic Sequential Quadratic Optimization Algorithm for Nonlinear-Equality-Constrained Optimization with Rank-Deficient Jacobians

AS Berahas, FE Curtis, MJ O’Neill, DP Robinson

Mathematics of Operations Research 2024 49(4):2212–2248

Stationary Points of a Shallow Neural Network with Quadratic Activations and the Global Optimality of the Gradient Descent Algorithm

D Gamarnik, EC Kizildag, I Zadik

Mathematics of Operations Research 2025 50(1):209–251

 

HT Itai Ashlagi 

Fast and slow dissemination of new ideas in medicine and economics (one timeline:)

There are many differences between medicine and economics, but one of the most striking is the speed of publication. 

I publish papers in both fields, so I get to experience very different speeds, of publication and response. Publishing (and therefore also responding--both positively and negatively ) is much slower in economics than in medicine.  I've been noticing this because of recent attention to a paper I coauthored that was published in November, 2025, in the journal Transplantation. (It had been submitted in January, was revised and accepted in March, and was published online in May.)  In December the journal created and distributed to its subscriber list a narrated video abstract of the paper. You can find the video here https://vimeo.com/1146995735/486989e95c?fl=pl&fe=sh

 Our paper suggested ways that information revealed during deceased organ allocation could be used to evaluate organ quality, and expedite (i.e. speed up) the allocation process for organs at risk of being unused.  And the first published response, just three month later, suggests how such information could be used in India.

Early Refusal Pattern Phenotyping as a Surrogate for Organ Quality Assessment in Kidney Allocation
Kashiv, Pranjal MD, DM1,2; Pasari, Amit MD, DM2,3; Balwani, Manish MD, DM2,3; Kute, Vivek MD, DM4
Transplantation ():10.1097/TP.0000000000005664, February 09, 2026. | DOI: 10.1097/TP.0000000000005664

"We read with interest the recent article by Guan et al,1 which provides a comprehensive and methodologically thoughtful assessment of refusal behavior in deceased donor kidney allocation. Their distinction between single-patient and multiple-patient simultaneous refusals, derived through timestamp-based clustering, offers a methodologically robust framework that elevates routine offer-response data into a meaningful surrogate for real-time assessment of organ suitability. This approach is particularly valuable in allocation environments where decisions must be made under substantial time pressure and with incomplete ancillary information.

...

" Their observations offer global relevance and hold potential for strengthening allocation efficiency in India’s evolving deceased donor landscape." 

 ######

Earlier:

Here's the blog post that accompanied the publication online... 

Friday, May 23, 2025  Deceased organ allocation: deciding early when to move fast

The administration takes its eye off medical journals (TACOs can be good)

The war against science hasn't just focused on research universities, but also on scientific journals. (The concern with journals is that they privilege evidence, which is seen as discriminating against some viewpoints.)  And the war on science has a particular focus on medicine, and hence on medical journals. But policing journals takes patience, and (in this case, fortunately) the eye of Sauron doesn't have a lot of patience. (Sort of like pediatricians, who are always in a hurry because they have little patients...) 

Medpage Today has the story:

DOJ Sent Letters to Medical Journals. Then What Happened?
— Worrying probe into publications' partisanship may have lost steam  by Rachael Robertson, 

"A few months into the second Trump administration, major medical journals received letters from Edward R. Martin Jr., who was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia at the time. (He has since been replaced by Jeanine Pirro.) 

"The first letter to come to light was addressed to CHEST Editor-in-Chief Peter Mazzone, MD, MPH, of the Cleveland Clinic, and dated April 14. Martin's letter contained five questions, including how the journal assessed its "responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation" and how it handled competing viewpoints. Martin requested a response by May 2.

"Other major journals received similar letters, including the New England Journal of Medicine and Obstetrics & Gynecology, the official journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, as well as two other journals that did not want to be named.

"But since receiving those letters in April, the publications haven't heard a peep on the matter from DOJ, several of the journals confirmed to MedPage Today. Most of the journals also declined to comment on the details of their responses to DOJ's letter. "

Pardon me: JAMA Network Statement on Potentially Offensive Content

 JAMA asks your pardon. (I don't know when they started including this statement, but I just noticed it...)

JAMA Network Statement on Potentially Offensive Content
This journal's previously published content may include language, information, or terms that are offensive, insensitive, or unethical and may reflect attitudes, biases, or conventions that were deemed acceptable at the original time of publication. The JAMA Network regrets any offense or harm caused by any previous publication with potentially offensive content or language, which do not reflect the current core values of the JAMA Network journals. The JAMA Network stands against all forms of racism and discrimination. In support of this commitment, the journals are actively addressing these and related concerns of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics invites papers from Ph.D. students

I recently received this email, inviting papers from PhD students:

"I am writing you as Editor of the Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE). JCRE is an online journal published by the German National Library of Economics (ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics). It is an open access journal with no article processing charges. Our Advisory Board includes David Autor, Anna Dreber, Richard Easterlin, Edward Leamer, David Roodman, and Jeffrey Wooldridge.

We are recruiting replication submissions from PhD students at top universities. With the end of the semester upon us, I am asking if you might be aware of any students who have done replications, either in your course or in the courses of your colleagues. If so, the Christmas break could be a great time to encourage them to prepare their replication research for submission to a journal.

We believe JCRE could be an attractive outlet for graduate students’ replication research. Our quick turnaround time and online publishing model provides an opportunity to achieve a peer-reviewed journal publication quickly. Perhaps in time for next year’s job market.

The philosophy of JCRE is that replications are essential to assess the reliability of economics research. While some top journals publish replications, it is still difficult for most replications to get published in a peer-reviewed journal. JCRE provides a home for these studies.

We are asking your help to circulate this opportunity to any students or colleagues who might be interested. The attached flyer may be helpful in this regard

Thank you for your help. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the journal at jcre@zbw-online.eu."

INFORMS Section on Auctions and Market Design (AMD)

 Itai Ashlagi and Vahideh Manshadi write:

"Dear colleagues:

 

We are writing to provide updates about the ongoing activities of the INFORMS Section on Auctions and Market Design (AMD)... 

 

1) AMD Membership without INFORMS Membership: As you may know, AMD aims to build an inclusive and diverse community interested in Market Design (broadly construed). Toward that goal, we have worked with INFORMS to create the option of joining AMD without INFORMS membership. If you are interested in joining the AMD section, please visit our website and check out the different options to join (as INFORMS member for an additional $10 on top of your INFORMS membership or non-member for only $20 in total per year). This way you will continue to be informed about our market design activities. 

 

2) Special Issue on Market Design (Deadline September 24): We are pleased to announce that we have co-sponsored a new Special Issue on Mathematics of Market Design at the INFORMS Journal Mathematics of Operations Research. (Special Issue Editors: Saša Pekeč, Martin Bichler, Nicole Immorlica, Scott Kominers, and Paul Milgrom) 

 

3) Journal Presence at Management Science: the INFORMS Journal  Management Science now has a department titled Market Design, Platform, and Demand Analytics. (Dept. Editors are Itai Ashlagi, Martin Bichler, and Srikanth Jagabathula; the list of AEs includes Paul Milgrom and Al Roth); Management Science is the flagship journal of INFORMS.  

 

4) AMD Workshop at the ACM EC in July 24: We are pleased to announce the INFORMS Market Design Workshop which will take place in conjunction with the ACM EC Conference at Yale University, July 8-11, 2024. Special thanks to Paul Dutting, John Horton, and Yash Kanoria for co-organizing the workshop. Check the workshop website for the program details.

 

5) AMD INFORMS Cluster at the Annual Meeting in October 24: We are excited to have organized  ~25 invited sessions on a wide range of topics as part of the AMD cluster at the upcoming INFORMS Annual Meeting (Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, 2024); special thanks to Thodoris Lykouris, Ali Makhdoumi, Pengyu Qian for serving as the cluster co-organizers.

 If you want to learn more about AMD, please check out the AMD website, people involved, and past activities. We'd be excited to have you as part of our growing community of market designers!"