Market Design →

Building a Nonprofit Marketplace to Feed America

Feeding America manages a network of more than 200 food banks nationwide. Scott Duke Kominers and Canice Prendergast discuss how the organization designed a fair and efficient marketplace for food distribution. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist'

Amazon has more economists on staff than any university economics department, and technology firms are snapping them up the minute they graduate, says Michael Luca. Why? Call it the economics of digitization. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

An Invitation to Market Design

Effective market design can improve liquidity, efficiency, and equity in markets. This paper illustrates best practices in market design through three examples: the design of medical residency matching programs, a scrip system to allocate food donations to food banks, and the recent “Incentive Auction” that reallocated wireless spectrum from television broadcasters to telecoms.

The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective

How should the most appropriate employers and job candidates find each other? Newly minted economists typically send applications to an average of 80 potential employers, and as a result, many employers receive hundreds of applications. It is extremely time-consuming to sort through all the applications, and as the process unfolds, there is a risk of coordination failure, in which employers and candidates who would be well-suited do not manage to create a match. In this paper, HBS professors Peter A. Coles and Alvin E. Roth and colleagues provide an overview of the market for new PhD economists and describe new mechanisms to improve the matching process. They conclude by discussing the emergence of platforms for transmitting job market information, and other design issues that may arise in the market for new economists. Key concepts include: Practical market design is often a response to particular problems. A new market design often leads the way to developing new knowledge. Two new mechanisms have facilitated matches. The first, a signaling service, allows job candidates to express interest to a limited number to potential employers prior to interviews at association meetings. The second mechanism, a web-based "scramble," reduces search costs and "thickens" the late part of the job market for candidates and employers still seeking a match. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.