Market design course at Stanford (Econ 285, Autumn 2012)

Muriel Niederle and I will be teaching an introduction to market design this quarter (the first quarter of a three quarter graduate sequence whose other quarters will be taught by Paul Milgrom and Fuhito Kojima).

The first class session is on Monday September 24.

This will be the first course I've taught at Stanford since 1978 (when I taught a course on Axiomatic Models of Bargaining, while on leave from the University of Illinois), and it will likely resemble the market design course I taught last Fall at Harvard. You can find the web page for that course, which includes the slides I lectured from here. (Since this will be followed by a quarter taught by Paul Milgrom, we plan to spend less time on auctions than when I taught at Harvard, and more time on matching markets: see the course description below.)

We think the class might be interesting not only to economists but also to operations researchers and computer scientists...

ECON  285 - 01   Market Design
				Stanford University | 2012-2013 Autumn | Lecture
		Return to Faculty Center
			Class Details Status Open Class Number 34287 Session Regular Academic Session Units 2 - 5 units Lecture Required Class Components Career Graduate Dates 9/24/2012 - 12/7/2012 Grading Letter or Credit/No Credit Location Stanford Main Campus Campus Stanford Main Campus
			Meeting Information Days & Times Room Instructor Meeting Dates MoWe 11:00AM - 12:50PM Econ 106 Alvin Roth, Muriel Niederle 09/24/2012 - 12/07/2012
			Class Availability Class Capacity Wait List Capacity 17 0 Enrollment Total Wait List Total 10 0 Available Seats 7
			Description 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.

Summer law associates: offer rates

The blog Above the Law is tracking law firms which give permanent offers to 100% of their summer associates, before they head back to their third year of law school.

They compiled a similar list for 2011, and updated it here.

That update ends as follows:

One caveat: note that these 100 percent offer rates might include so-called cold offers, in which a firm makes an offer to a candidate, but suggests that perhaps the candidate should not accept it. E.g., “We’re making you an offer [so we can boast about our 100 percent offer rate], but we think you might be happier elsewhere [wink wink], so you might want to look into the 3L recruiting process [don't come here unless you want to work out of a utility closet].”

Cold offers are frowned upon in many quarters. Here is what NALP has to say about them:

11. Cold or Fake Offers

Q. It is reported that some employers give offers to summer associates with the understanding that the offer will not be accepted. What is NALP’s view of this practice?

A. NALP does not condone this unethical practice. Whether initiated by students to appear more attractive to future employers or by employers to enhance their offer ratios, the practice is fraudulent and unprofessional. NALP suggests that employers adopt a standard policy of extending or confirming offers in writing, signed by a representative of the organization, so that only legitimate offers are made.