Publications

2007
Working Paper

Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: History, Theory, Practice, and Open Questions

The deferred acceptance algorithm proposed by Gale and Shapley (1962) has had a profound influence on market design, both directly, by being adapted into practical matching mechanisms, and, indirectly, by raising new theoretical questions. Deferred acceptance... View Details

Keywords: Education; Marketplace Matching; Market Design; Mathematical Methods; Theory; Practice

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

sector may be traced back to fundamental properties of the underlying technologies. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-144.pdf Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation Authors:Muriel Niederle, View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-055.pdf Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions Author:Alvin E. Roth Abstract This paper describes the unraveling of transaction dates in several markets, including the labor... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Sep 2009
News

Opting in vs. Opting Out

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

Living Kidney Donation Authors:Ruthanne L. Hanto, Alvin E. Roth, M. Utku Ünver, and Francis L. Delmonico Publication:Chap. 8 in Kidney Transplantation: A Guide to the Care of Transplant Recipients, edited by D. McKay and S. Steinberg,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2018
Article

Marketplaces, Markets, and Market Design

Marketplaces are often small parts of large markets, and both markets and marketplaces come in many varieties. Market design seeks to understand what marketplaces must accomplish to enable different kinds of markets. Marketplaces can have varying degrees of success,... View Details

Keywords: Labor Market; Pricing; Market Design; Markets; Economics

2015
Chapter

Is Experimental Economics Living Up to Its Promise?

The question that is the title of this essay already suggests that experimental economics has at least reached a sufficient state of maturity that we can try to take stock of its progress and consider how that progress matches the anticipations we may have had for the... View Details

Keywords: Economics; History; Science

July 2002
Article

The Economist As Engineer: Game Theory, Experimental Economics and Computation As Tools of Design Economics

By: Alvin E Roth

Keywords: Game Theory; Economics; Mathematical Methods; Design

Awards

Nobel

Awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics with Lloyd Shapley for their research on market design and matching theory. View Details

16 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Applied Economics Save Homeless Puppies?

In 2012, two seasoned scholars shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their research on designing markets. Lloyd Shapley had developed theoretical methods to create stable matches in unstable markets. Alvin View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

01 Sep 2004
News

Books

mobilize their organizations to prevent them. Seeing What’s Next by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, and Erik A. Roth (Harvard Business School Press) Professor Christensen and his coauthors (both... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

March 2008
Article

What Have We Learned from Market Design?

This essay discusses some things we have learned about markets, in the process of designing marketplaces to fix market failures. To work well, marketplaces have to provide thickness, i.e. they need to attract a large enough proportion of the potential participants in... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Market Design; Market Participation; Market Transactions; Failure; Safety

17 Apr 2014
News

Striking a Balance

Alvin J. Silk The struggle to balance career and family was all too familiar to the late Diane Doerge Wilson, whose memory is being honored with an HBS professorship funded by a gift from her husband, Alvin... View Details

September 2021
Article

Kidney Exchange: An Operations Perspective

By: Itai Ashlagi and Alvin E. Roth

Many patients in need of a kidney transplant have a willing but incompatible (or poorly matched) living donor. Kidney exchange programs arrange exchanges among such patient-donor pairs, in cycles and chains of exchange, so each patient receives a compatible kidney.... View Details

Keywords: Kidney Exchange Programs; Matching; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Programs; Design

September 2006
Article

The Speed of Learning in Noisy Games: Partial Reinforcement and the Sustainability of Cooperation

By: Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Alvin E. Roth

In an experiment, players ability to learn to cooperate in the repeated prisoners dilemma was substantially diminished when the payoffs were noisy, even though players could monitor one anothers past actions perfectly. In contrast, in one-time play against a succession... View Details

2007
Working Paper

The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices

By: Muriel Niederle and Alvin E. Roth

New gastroenterologists participated in a labor market clearinghouse (a "match") from 1986 through the late 1990's, after which the match was abandoned. This provides an opportunity to study the effects of a match, by observing the differences in the outcomes and... View Details

Keywords: Health; Employment; Marketplace Matching; Selection and Staffing; Job Offer; Compensation and Benefits; Health Industry

Read Now

May 2007
Article

Multi-agent Learning and the Descriptive Value of Simple Models

By: Ido Erev and Alvin E. Roth

Keywords: Value