14.147 | Fall 2009 | Graduate

Topics in Game Theory

Readings

There is far too much material here than we can possibly cover in 7 lectures, so this long list of articles is included for your reference.

[Milgrom] = Milgrom, Paul. Putting Auction Theory to Work. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521536721.

[Roth and Sotomayor] = Roth, Alvin, and Marilda Sotomayor. Two-Sided Matching: A Study in Game-Theoretic Modeling and Analysis. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521437882.

These other books may be of interest:

Klemperer, Paul. Auctions: Theory and Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780691119250. 

Krishna, Vijay. Auction Theory. 2nd ed. Burlington, MA: Academic Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780123745071.

Moulin, Hervé. Axioms of Cooperative Decision Making. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780521424585.

Shiller, Robert. Macro Markets: Creating Institutions for Managing Society’s Largest Economic Risks. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780198294184.

Readings by Session

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction and motivations

Required readings

Roth, Alvin E. “The Economist as Engineer: Game Theory, Experimentation, and Computation as Tools for Design Economics.” Econometrica 70, no. 4 (July 2002): 1341-1378.

Milgrom, Paul. “Package Auctions and Package Exchanges.” Econometrica 75, no. 4 (July 2007): 935-965.

Joskow, Paul, Richard Schmalensee, and Elizabeth Bailey. “The Market for Sulfur Dioxide Emissions.” American Economic Review 88, no. 4 (September 1998): 669-685.

Che, Yeon-Koo, and Ian Gale. “Market Versus Non-Market Assignment of Initial Ownership.” Mimeograph, Columbia University, 2006. (PDF)

Klemperer, Paul. “What Really Matters in Auction Design?Journal of Economic Perspectives 16, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 169-189.

Coase, Ronald. “The Federal Communications Commission.” Journal of Law and Economics 2 (October 1959): 1-40.

———. “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics 3 (October 1960): 1-44.

McMillan, John. “Selling Spectrum Rights.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 145-162.

Montgomery, W. David. “Markets in Licenses and Efficient Pollution Control Programs.” Journal of Economic Theory 5, no. 6 (December 1972): 395-418.

Hahn, Robert. “Market Power and Transferable Property Rights.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 99, no. 4 (November 1984): 753-765.

Weitzman, Martin. “Is the Price System or Rationing More Effective in Getting a Commodity to Those Who Need it Most?Bell Journal of Economics 8, no. 2 (Autumn 1977): 517-524.

Sah, Raaj Kumar. “Queues, Rations, and Market: Comparisons of Outcomes for the Poor and the Rich.” American Economic Review 77, no. 1 (March 1987): 69-77.

Elster, Jon. Local Justice: How Institutions Allocate Scarce Goods and Necessary Burdens. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1993. ISBN: 9780871542328.

Roth, Alvin E. “Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 37-58.

Moulin, Hervé. “Priority Rules and Other Asymmetric Rationing Methods.” Econometrica 68, no. 3 (May 2000): 643-684.

Readings for referee reports

Fowlie, Meredith, and Jeffrey Perloff. “Distributing Pollution Rights in Cap-and-Trade Programs: Are Outcomes Independent of Allocation?” Mimeograph, University of Michigan, 2009.

Mansur, Erin T., and Matt White. “Market Organization and Efficiency in Electricity Markets.” Mimeograph, University of Pennsylvania, 2007. (PDF)

Leslie, Phillip, and Alan Sorenson. “The Welfare Effects of Ticket Resale.” Mimeograph, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, October 2009. Also available as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 15476, November 2009.

Fowlie, Meredith, Stephen Holland, and Erin T. Mansur. “What Do Emissions Markets Deliver and To Whom? Evidence from Southern California’s NOx Trading Program.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 15082, June 2009.

2 Basic mechanism design and auction theory

Required readings

Reny, Philip. “Arrow’s Theorem and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem: A Unified Approach.” Economics Letters 70, no. 1 (January 2001): 99-105.

Klemperer, Paul. “Why Every Economist Should Learn Some Auction Theory.” Chapter 2 in Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Practice, Eighth World Congress. Vol. 1. Edited by Mathias Dewatripont, Lars Peter Hansen, and Stephen J. Turnovsky. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 25-55. ISBN: 9780521524117.

[Milgrom] “Getting to Work,” “Vickrey-Clarke-Groves Mechanisms,” and “The Envelope Theorem and Payoff Equivalence,” chapters 1 to 3, pp. 1-97.

Buy at MIT Press Ausubel, Lawrence, and Paul Milgrom. “The Lovely but Lonely Vickrey Auction.” Chapter 1 in Combinatorial Auctions. Edited by Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg, and Vernon L. Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010, pp. 17-40. ISBN: 9780262514132. First published in 2005 by MIT Press.

Rothkopf, Michael, Thomas Tesiberg, and Edward Kahn. “Why are Vickrey Auctions Rare?” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 1 (February 1990): 94-109.

Milgrom, Paul, and Ilya Segal. “The Envelope Theorem for Arbitrary Choice Sets.” Econometrica 70, no. 2 (March 2002): 583-601.

Vickrey, William. “Counterspeculation, Auctions, and Competitive Sealed Tenders.” Journal of Finance 16, no. 1 (March 1961): 8-37.

Harris, Milton, and Robert Townsend. “Resource Allocation under Asymmetric Information.” Econometrica 49, no. 1 (January 1981): 33-64.

Holmström, Bengt. “Groves’ Schemes on Restricted Domains.” Econometrica 47, no. 5 (September 1979): 1137-1144.

Gibbard, Allan. “Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result.” Econometrica 41, no. 4 (July 1973): 587-601.

Satterthwaite, Mark. “Strategy-Proofness and Arrow’s Conditions: Existence and Correspondence Theorems for Voting Procedures and Social Welfare Functions.” Journal of Economic Theory 10, no. 2 (April 1975): 187-217.

Gibbard, Allan. “Manipulation of Schemes that Mix Voting with Chance.” Econometrica 45, no. 3 (April 1977): 665-681.

Buy at MIT Press Fudenberg, Drew, and Jean Tirole. “Bayesian Games and Mechanism Design.” Chapter 7 in Game Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991, pp. 243-318. ISBN: 9780262061414.

d’Aspremont, Claude, and Louis-Andre Gerard-Varet. “Incentives and Incomplete Information.” Journal of Public Economics 11, no. 1 (February 1979): 24-45.

Crémer, Jacques, and Richard McLean. “Optimal Selling Strategies under Uncertainty for a Discriminating Monopolist when Demands are Interdependent.” Econometrica 53, no. 2 (March 1985): 345-361.

McAfee, R. Preston, and Philip Reny. “Correlated Information and Mechanism Design.” Econometrica 60, no. 2 (March 1992): 395-421.

Chung, Kim-Sau, and Wojciech Olszewski. “A Non-Differentiable Approach to Revenue Equivalence.” Theoretical Economics 2, no. 4 (December 2007): 469-487.

Readings for referee reports

McLennan, Andrew. “Manipulation in Elections with Uncertain Preferences.” School of Economics Discussion Paper No. 360, University of Queensland, Australia, 2008.

3 More mechanism design and auction theory

Required readings

[Milgrom] “Bidding Equilibrium and Revenue Differences,” and “Interdependence of Types and Values,” chapters 4 to 5, pp. 98-207.

Myerson, Roger. “Optimal Auction Design.” Mathematics of Operations Research 6, no. 1 (February 1981): 58-73.

Demange, Gabrielle, David Gale, and Marilda Sotomayor. “Multi-Item Auctions.” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 4 (August 1986): 863-872.

Myerson, Roger, and Mark Satterthwaite. “Efficient Mechanisms for Bilateral Trading.” Journal of Economic Theory 29, no. 2 (April 1983): 265-281.

Milgrom, Paul, and Robert Weber. “A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding.” Econometrica 50, no. 5 (September 1982): 1089-1122.

Bulow, Jeremy, and John Roberts. “The Simple Economics of Optimal Auctions.” Journal of Political Economy 97, no. 5 (October 1989): 1060-1090.

McAfee, R. Preston, and John McMillan. “Bidding Rings.” American Economic Review 82, no. 3 (June 1992): 579-599.

Levin, Daniel, and James L. Smith. “Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry.” American Economic Review 84, no. 3 (June 1994): 585-599.

Bulow, Jeremy, and Paul Klemperer. “Auctions versus Negotiations.” American Economic Review 86, no. 1 (March 1996): 180-194.

Armstrong, Mark. “Optimal Multi-Object Auctions.” Review of Economic Studies 67, no. 3 (July 2000): 455-481.

Wilson, Robert. “Incentive Efficiency of Double Auctions.” Econometrica 53, no. 5 (September 1985): 1101-1115.

McAfee, R. Preston, and J. McMillan. “Auctions and Bidding.” Journal of Economic Literature 25, no. 2 (June 1987): 699-738.

Milgrom, Paul, and Robert Weber. “The Value of Information in a Sealed-Bid Auction.” Journal of Mathematical Economics 10, no. 1 (June 1982): 105-114.

Readings for referee reports

Bergemann, Dirk, and Juuso Välimäki. “The Dynamic Pivot Mechanism.” Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1672, Yale University, August 2008.

Chen, Chia-Hui. “One-to-Many Negotiation Between a Seller and Asymmetric Buyers.” PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 2009.

Pai, Mallesh M., and Rakesh Vohra. “Optimal Auctions with Financially Constrained Bidders.” Mimeograph, Northwestern University, July 2009.

Fox, Jeremy T., and Patrick Bajari. “Measuring the Efficiency of an FCC Spectrum Auction.” Mimeograph, University of Chicago, October 2009. (PDF - 1.1MB) Also available as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 11671, October 2005.

Segal, Ilya, and Michael D. Whinston. “An Expected-Efficient Status Quo Allows Efficient Bargaining.” Mimeograph, Stanford University, January 2009.

Hafalir, Isa, and Vijay Krishna. “Asymmetric Auctions with Resale.” Mimeograph, Pennsylvania State University, January 2006.

Cheng, Harrison, and Guofu Tan. “Auctions with Resale and Bargaining Power.” Mimeograph, University of Southern California, January 2009. (PDF)

4 One-sided matching: house allocation and market problems

Required readings

Shapley, Lloyd, and Herbert Scarf. “On Cores and Indivisibility.” Journal of Mathematical Economics 1, no. 1 (March 1974): 23-28.

Moulin, Hervé. “Core and Competitive Equilibrium: Multiple Goods.” Chapter 3 in Cooperative Microeconomics: A Game-Theoretic Introduction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 103-162. ISBN: 9780691034812.

Roth, Alvin E., and Andrew Postlewaite. “Weak versus Strong Domination in a Market with Indivisible Goods.” Journal of Mathematical Economics 4, no. 2 (August 1977): 131-137.

Roth, Alvin E. “Incentive Compatibility in a Market with Indivisible Goods.” Economics Letters 9, no. 2 (1982): 127-132.

Hylland, Aanund, and Richard Zeckhauser. “The Efficient Allocation of Individuals to Positions.” Journal of Political Economy 87, no. 2 (April 1979): 293-314.

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, and Tayfun Sönmez. “House Allocation with Existing Tenants.” Journal of Economic Theory 88, no. 2 (October 1977): 233-260.

Roth, Alvin E., Tayfun Sönmez, and M. Utku Ünver. “Kidney Exchange.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 2 (May 2004): 457-488.

5 Two-sided matching: stability, many-to-one vs. one-to-one, and small cores in large markets

Required readings

[Roth and Sotomayor] “Stable Matchings,” “The Structure of the Set of Stable Matchings,” “Strategic Questions,” and “The College Admissions Model and the Labor Market for Medical Interns,” chapters 2 to 5, pp. 17-170.

Gale, David, and Lloyd S. Shapley. “College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage.” American Mathematical Monthly 69, no. 1 (January 1962): 9-15.

Roth, Alvin E. “The Evolution of the Labor Market for Medical Interns and Residents: A Case Study in Game Theory.” Journal of Political Economy 92, no. 6 (December 1984): 991-1016.

Niederle, Muriel, and Alvin E. Roth. “Relationship Between Wages and Presence of a Match in Medical Fellowships.” Journal of the American Medical Association 290, no. 9 (2003): 1153-1154.

Bulow, Jeremy, and Jonathan Levin. “Matching and Price Competition.” American Economic Review 96, no. 3 (June 2006): 652-668.

Niederle, Muriel, and Alvin E. Roth. “Unraveling Reduces the Scope of an Entry Level Labor Market: Gastroenterology With and Without a Centralized Match.” Journal of Political Economy 111, no. 6 (December 2003): 1342-1352. Also available as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 8616, December 2001.

Sönmez, Tayfun. “Manipulation via Capacities in Two-Sided Matching Markets.” Journal of Economic Theory 77, no. 1 (November 1997): 197-204.

———. “Can Pre-Arranged Matches by Avoided in Two-Sided Matching Markets?” Journal of Economic Theory 86, no. 1 (May 1999): 148-156.

Kelso, Alexander S., Jr., and Vincent P. Crawford. “Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes.” Econometrica 50, no. 6 (November 1982): 1483-1504.

Gul, Faruk, and Ennio Stachetti. “Walrasian Equilibrium with Gross Substitutes.” Journal of Economic Theory 87, no. 1 (July 1999): 95-124.

Hatfield, John, and Paul Milgrom. “Matching with Contracts.” American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (September 2005): 913-935.

Ostrovsky, Michael. “Stability in Supply-Chain Networks.” American Economic Review 98, no. 3 (June 2008): 897-923.

6 Stochastic matching mechanisms

Required readings

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, and Tayfun Sönmez. “Random Serial Dictatorship and the Core from Random Endowments in House Allocation Problems.” Econometrica 66, no. 3 (May 1998): 689-702.

Pathak, Parag. “Lotteries in Student Assignment: The Equivalence of Queueing and a Market-Based Approach.” Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 2008. ( PDF)

Bogomolnaia, Anna, and Hervé Moulin. “A New Solution to the Random Assignment Problem.” Journal of Economic Theory 100, no. 2 (October 2001): 295-328.

Kojima, Fuhito, and Mihai Manea. “Strategy-Proofness of the Probabilistic Serial Mechanism in Large Random Assignment Problems.” Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Harvard University, September 2008.

Kojima, Fuhito, and Yeon-Koo Che. “Asymptotic Equivalence of Probabilistic Serial and Random Priority Mechanisms.” Econometrica (forthcoming). Also available as Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1677, Yale University, October 2008.

Readings for referee reports

Manea, Mihai. “Asymptotic Ordinal Inefficiency of Random Serial Dictatorship.” Theoretical Economics 4, no. 2 (June 2009): 165-197.

Sönmez, Tayfun, and M. Utku Ünver. “House Allocation with Existing Tenants: An Equivalence.” Games and Economic Behavior 52, no. 1 (July 2005): 153-185.

Bogomolnaia, Anna, and Hervé Moulin. “Random Matching under Dichotomous Preferences.” Econometrica 72, no. 1 (January 2004): 257-279.

Roth, Alvin E., Tayfun Sönmez, and M. Utku Ünver. “Pairwise Kidney Exchange.” Journal of Economic Theory 125, no. 2 (December 2005): 151-188.

7 Student assignment and school choice

Required readings

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, and Tayfun Sönmez. “School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach.” American Economic Review 93, no. 3 (June 2003): 729-747.

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, Parag Pathak, and Alvin E. Roth. “Strategy-Proofness vs. Efficiency Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the New York City High School Match.” American Economic Review 99, no. 5 (December 2009): 1954-1978.

Erdil, Aytek, and Haluk Ergin. “What’s the Matter with Tie-Breaking? Improving Efficiency in School Choice.” American Economic Review 98, no. 3 (June 2008): 669-689.

Pathak, Parag, and Tayfun Sönmez. “Leveling the Playing Field: Sincere and Sophisticated Players in the Boston Mechanism.” American Economic Review 98, no. 4 (September 2008): 1636-1652.

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, Parag Pathak, Alvin E. Roth, and Tayfun Sönmez. “Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism: Strategy-Proofness as Equal Access.” Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Duke University, 2006.

Readings for referee reports

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, Yeon-Koo Che, and Yosuke Yasuda. “Expanding ‘Choice’ in School Choice.” Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Research Paper No. 20, November 2008.

 

Readings for Further Study

TOPICS READINGS
Assorted auction topics (multi-unit auctions, empirical auctions, new directions)

Required readings

Krishna, Vijay. Auction Theory. 2nd ed. Burlington, MA: Academic Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780123745071.

Demange, Gabrielle, David Gale, and Marilda Sotomayor. “Multi-Item Auctions.” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 4 (August 1986): 863-872.

Edelman, Benjamin, Michael Ostrovsky, and Michael Schwarz. “Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars of Keywords.” American Economic Review 97, no. 1 (March 2007): 242-259. Also available as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 11765, November 2005.

Harrison, Glenn. “Theory and Misbehavior in First-Price Auctions.” American Economic Review 79, no. 4 (September 1989): 749-762.

Laffont, Jean-Jacques, Hervé Ossard, and Quang Vuong. “Econometrics of First Price Auctions.” Econometrica 63, no. 4 (July 1995): 953-980.

Guerre, Emmanuel, Isabelle Perrigne, and Quang Vuong. “Optimal Nonparametric Estimation of First-Price Auctions.” Econometrica 68, no. 3 (May 2000): 525-574.

Haile, Philip, and Elie Tamer. “Inference with an Incomplete Model of English Auctions.” Journal of Political Economy 111, no. 1 (February 2003): 1-51.

Hendricks, Kenneth, and Robert H. Porter. “An Empirical Study of an Auction with Asymmetric Information.” American Economic Review 78, no. 5 (December 1988): 865-883.

Guerre, Emmanuel, Isabelle Perrigne, and Quang Vuong. “Nonparametric Identification of Risk Aversion in First-Price Auctions Under Exclusion Restrictions.” Econometrica 77, no. 4 (July 2009): 1193-1227.

Athey, Susan, and Philip Haile. “Identification of Standard Auction Models.” Econometrica 70, no. 6 (November 2002): 2107-2140.

———. “Nonparametric Approaches to Auctions.” Chapter 60 in Handbook of Econometrics. Vol. 6A. Edited by James J. Heckman and Edward Leamer. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland, 2005, pp. 3847-3965. ISBN: 9780444506313.

Wilson, Robert. “Auctions of Shares.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 93, no. 4 (November 1979): 675-689.

Kremer, Ilan, and Kjell Nyborg. “Divisible Good Auctions: The Role of Allocation Rules.” Rand Journal of Economics 35, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 147-159.

Back, Kerry, and Jaime F. Zender. “Auctions of Divisible Goods: on the Rationale for the Treasury Experiment.” Review of Financial Studies 6, no. 4 (1993): 733-764.

Nyborg, Kjell, Kristian Rydqvist, and Suresh Sundaresan. “Bidder Behavior in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from Swedish Treasury Auctions.” Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 2 (April 2002): 394-424.

Malvey, Paul F., and Christine M. Archibald. “Uniform-Price Auctions: Update of the Treasury Experience.” Office of Market Finance, U.S. Treasury, Washington, D.C., October 1998. (PDF)

Milgrom, Paul. “Putting Auction Theory to Work: the Simultaneous Ascending Auction.” Journal of Political Economy 108, no. 2 (April 2000): 245-272.

Bernheim, B. Douglas, and Michael Whinston. “Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 101, no. 1 (February 1986): 1-31.

Ausubel, Lawrence. “An Efficient Ascending-Bid Auction for Multiple Objects.” American Economic Review 94, no. 5 (December 2004): 1452-1475.

Ausubel, Lawrence, and Peter Cramton. “Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions.” Working paper, Department of Economics, University of Maryland, July 2002. (PDF)

Ausubel, Lawrence, and Paul Milgrom. “Ascending Auctions with Package Bidding.” Working Paper No. 02004, Department of Economics, Stanford University, March 2002.

Dasgupta, Partha, and Eric Maskin. “Efficient Auctions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, no. 2 (May 2000): 341-388.

Jehiel, Philippe, and Benny Moldovanu. “Efficient Design with Interdependent Valuations.” Econometrica 69, no. 5 (September 2001): 1237-1259.

Hansen, Robert G. “Auctions with Contingent Payments.” American Economic Review 75, no. 4 (September 1985): 862-865.

Maskin, Eric, and John Riley. “Asymmetric Auctions.” Review of Economic Studies 67, no. 3 (July 2000): 413-438. 

Readings for referee reports

DeMarzo, Peter, Ilan Kremer, and Andrzej Skrzypacz. “Bidding with Securities: Auctions and Security Design.” American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (September 2005): 936-959.

Krishna, Vijay. “Asymmetric English Auctions.” Journal of Economic Theory 112, no. 2 (October 2003): 261-288.

Asker, John. “A Study of the Internal Organisation of a Bidding Cartel.” Working paper, Stern School of Business, New York University, April 2009. (PDF)

Marshall, Robert, and Leslie Marx. “The Vulnerability of Auctions to Bidder Collusion.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 2 (May 2009): 883-910.

Kastl, Jakub. “Discrete Bids and Empirical Inference in Divisible Good Auctions.” Mimeograph, Stanford University, 2009. (PDF)

Hortaçsu, Ali, and Jakub Kastl. “Do Bidders in Canadian Treasury Bill Auctions Have Private Values?” Mimeograph, Stanford University, 2008. (PDF)

Axiomatic resource allocation

Ma, Jipeng. “Strategy-Proofness and Strict Core in a Market with Indivisibilities.” International Journal of Game Theory 23, no. 1 (1994): 75-83.

Svensson, Lars-Gunnar. “Queue Allocation of Indivisible Goods.” Social Choice and Welfare 11, no. 4 (October 1994): 323-330.

———. “Strategy-Proof Allocation of Indivisible Goods.” Social Choice and Welfare 16, no. 4 (September 1999): 557-567.

Papai, Szilvia. “Strategy-Proof Assignment by Hierarchical Exchange.” Econometrica 68, no. 6 (November 2000): 1403-1434.

Readings for referee reports

Sönmez, Tayfun, and M. Utku Ünver. “House Allocation with Existing Tenants: A Characterization.” Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Boston College, 2009.

Pycia, Marek, and M. Utku Ünver. “A Theory of House Allocation and Exchange Mechanisms.” Boston College Working Papers in Economics No. 715, January 2009.

Resale markets and dynamics

Required readings

Jehiel, Philippe, Benny Moldovanu, and Ennio Stacchetti. “How (Not) to Sell Nuclear Weapons.” American Economic Review 86, no. 4 (September 1996): 814-829.

Jehiel, Philippe, and Benny Moldovanu. “Resale Markets and the Assignment of Property Rights.” Review of Economic Studies 66, no. 4 (October 1999): 971-991.

Halafir, Isa, and Vijay Krishna. “Asymmetric Auctions with Resale.” American Economic Review 98, no. 1 (March 2008): 87-112.

Haile, Philip. “Auctions with Resale Markets: An Application to U.S. Forest Service Timber Sales.” American Economic Review 92, no. 3 (June 2001): 399-427.

Readings for referee reports

Gomes, Armando, and Philippe Jehiel. “Dynamic Processes of Social and Economic Interactions: On the Persistence of Inefficiencies.” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 3 (June 2005): 626-667.

Garratt, Rodney, Thomas Tröger, and Charles Zheng. “Collusion via Resale.” Econometrica 77, no. 4 (July 2009): 1095-1136.

Garratt, Rodney, and Thomas Tröger. “Speculation in Standard Auctions with Resale.” Econometrica 74, no. 3 (May 2006): 753-769.

Zheng, Charles. “Optimal Auctions with Resale.” Econometrica 70, no. 6 (November 2002): 2197-2224.

Bergemann, Dirk, and Juuso Välimäki. “Dynamic Marginal Contribution Mechanisms.” Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1616, Yale University, July 2007.

Segal, Ilya, Alessandro Pavan, and Juuso Toikka. “Dynamic Mechanism Design: Revenue Equivalence, Profit Maximization, and Information Disclosure.” Mimeograph, Northwestern University, May 2008.

Gershkov, Alex, and Benny Moldovanu. “Learning about the Future and Dynamic Efficiency.” American Economic Review 99, no. 4 (September 2009): 1576-1587.

———. “Dynamic Revenue Maximization with Heterogeneous Objects: A Mechanism Design Approach.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 1, no. 2 (August 2009): 168-198.

Simplicity, robustness, and limited rationality

Required readings

Roth, Alvin E., and Uriel G. Rothblum. “Truncation Strategies in Matching Markets—In Search of Advice for Participants.” Econometrica 67, no. 1 (January 1999): 21-44.

Pathak, Parag, and Tayfun Sönmez. “Comparing Mechanisms by their Vulnerability to Manipulation.” Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 2009. (PDF)

Dasgupta, Partha, and Eric Maskin. “On the Robustness of Majority Rule.” Journal of the European Economic Association 6, no. 5 (September 2008): 949-973.

Milgrom, Paul. “Simplified Mechanisms with an Application to Sponsored-Search Auctions.” Games and Economic Behavior (forthcoming). Also available as Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) Discussion Paper 08-013 (PDF), December 2008.

———. “Assignment Messages and Exchanges.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 1, no. 2 (August 2009): 95-113.

Esponda, Ignacio. “Behavioral Equilibrium in Economies with Adverse Selection.” American Economic Review 98, no. 4 (September 2008): 1269-1291.

———. “Information Feedback in First Price Auctions.” Rand Journal of Economics 39, no. 2 (2008): 491-508.

Bergemann, Dirk, and Stephen Morris. “Robust Mechanism Design.” Econometrica 73, no. 6 (November 2005): 1771-1813.

———. “An Ascending Auction for Interdependent Values: Uniqueness and Robustness to Strategy Uncertainty.” American Economic Review 97, no. 2 (May 2007): 125-130.

Wilson, Robert B. “Efficient and Competitive Rationing.” Econometrica 57, no. 1 (January 1989): 1-40.

McAfee, R. Preston. “Coarse Matching.” Econometrica 70, no. 5 (September 2002): 2025-2034.

Roth, Alvin E., Tayfun Sönmez, and M. Utku Ünver. “Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in Markets with Compatibility-Based Preferences.” American Economic Review 97, no. 3 (June 2007): 828-851.

Readings for referee reports

Budish, Eric. “The Combinatorial Assignment Problem: Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes.” Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, October 2009. 

Chung, Kim-Sau, and Jeffrey C. Ely. “Foundations of Dominant Strategy Mechanisms.” Review of Economic Studies 74, no. 2 (April 2007): 447-476.

Roth, Alvin E., and Axel Ockenfels. “Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet.” American Economic Review 92, no. 4 (September 2002): 1093-1103. Also available as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 7729, June 2000.

Ely, Jeffrey C., and Tanjim Hossain. “Sniping and Squatting in Auction Markets.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 1, no. 2 (August 2009): 68-94.

Chapman, James T. E., David McAdams, and Harry Paarsch. “Bounding Best-Response Violations in Discriminatory Auctions with Private Values.” Mimeograph, Duke University, July 2006. (PDF)

Large Markets

Required readings

Roth, Alvin E., and Elliot Peranson. “The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design.” American Economic Review 89, no. 4 (September 1999): 748-780.

Kojima, Fuhito, and Parag Pathak. “Incentives and Stability in Large Two-Sided Matching Markets.” American Economic Review 99, no. 3 (June 2009): 608-627.

Kojima, Fuhito, Parag Pathak, and Alvin E. Roth. “Stability and Incentives in Matching with Couples.” Mimeograph, Stanford University, 2009.

Roberts, Donald John, and Andrew Postlewaite. “The Incentives for Price-Taking Behavior in Large Exchange Economies.” Econometrica 44, no. 1 (January 1976): 115-127.

Rustichini, Aldo, Mark A. Satterthwaite, and Steven R. Williams. “Convergence to Efficiency in a Simple Market with Incomplete Information.” Econometrica 62, no. 1 (September 1994): 1041-1063.

Satterthwaite, Mark A., and Steven R. Williams. “The Optimality of a Simple Market Mechanism.” Econometrica 70, no. 5 (September 2002): 1841-1863.

Satterthwaite, Mark A. “Strategy-Proofness and Markets.” Social Choice and Welfare 18, no. 1 (2001): 37-58.

Gresik, Thomas, and Mark A. Satterthwaite. “The Rate of Which a Simple Market Becomes Efficient as the Number of Traders Increases: An Asymptotic Result for Optimal Trading Mechanisms.” Journal of Economic Theory 48, no. 1 (June 1989): 304-332. Also available as Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science Discussion Paper No. 708, Northwestern University, January 1985.

Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, and Jeroen Swinkels. “The Loser’s Curse and Information Aggregation in Common Value Auctions.” Econometrica 65, no. 6 (November 1997): 1247-1282.

———. “Efficiency and Information Aggregation in Auctions.” American Economic Review 90, no. 3 (June 2000): 499-525.

Wilson, Robert B. “A Bidding Model of Perfect Competition.” Review of Economic Studies 44, no. 3 (October 1977): 511-518.

Milgrom, Paul. “A Convergence Theorem for Competitive Bidding with Differential Information.” Econometrica 47, no. 3 (May 1979): 679-688.

Swinkels, Jeroen. “Efficiency of Large Private Value Auctions.” Econometrica 69, no. 1 (January 2001): 37-68.

Perry, Motty, and Philip J. Reny. “Toward a Strategic Foundation for Rational Expectations Equilibrium.” Econometrica 74, no. 5 (September 2006): 1231-1269.

Wilson, Robert B. “Incentive Efficiency of Double Auctions.” Econometrica 53, no. 5 (September 1985): 1101-1115.

Readings for referee reports

Cripps, Martin, and Jeroen Swinkels. “Efficiency of Large Double Auctions.” Econometrica 74, no. 1 (January 2006): 47-92.

Fudenberg, Drew, Markus Mobius, and Adam Szeidl. “Existence of Equilibrium in Large Double Auctions.” Journal of Economic Theory 133, no. 1 (March 2007): 550-567.

McLean, Richard, and Andrew Postlewaite. “Informational Size and Incentive Compatibility.” Econometrica 70, no. 6 (November 2002): 2421-2453.

Jackson, Matthew, and Ilan Kremer. “The Relevance of a Choice of Auction Format in a Competitive Environment.” Review of Economic Studies 73, no. 4 (October 2006): 961-981. Also available as Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Working Paper No. 1190, California Institute of Technology, January 2004.

Message spaces

Required readings

Casella, Alessandra. “Storable Votes.” Games and Economic Behavior 51, no. 2 (May 2005): 391-419.

Abdulkadiroğlu, Atila, Yeon-Koo Che, and Yosuke Yasuda. “Expanding ‘Choice’ in School Choice.” Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Research Paper No. 20, November 2008.

Jackson, Matthew, and Hugo Sonnenschein. “Overcoming Incentive Constraints by Linking Decisions.” Econometrica 75, no. 1 (January 2007): 241-257.

Readings for referee reports

Börgers, Tilman. “Costly Voting.” American Economic Review 94, no. 1 (March 2004): 57-66.

Börgers, Tilman, and Peter Postl. “Efficient Compromising.” Journal of Economic Theory 114, no. 5 (September 2009): 2057-2076.

Hortalla-Vallve, Rafael. “Qualitative Voting.” Economics Series Working Papers No. 320, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, 2007.

Segal, Ilya. “Communication in Economic Mechanisms.” Chapter 6 in Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications, Ninth World Congress. Vol. 1. Edited by Richard Blundell, Whitney K. Newey, and Torsten Persson. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 222-268. ISBN: 9780521692083.

———. “The Communication Requirements of Social Choice Rules and Supporting Budget Sets.” Journal of Economic Theory 136, no. 1 (September 2007): 341-378.

Nisan, Noam, and Ilya Segal. “The Communication Requirements of Efficient Allocations and Supporting Prices.” Journal of Economic Theory 129, no. 1 (July 2006): 192-224.

Segal, Ilya. “Nash Implementation with Little Communication.” Theoretical Economics 5, no. 1 (March 2010): 51-71.

Markets for sharing risk, decentralized vs. over-the-counter exchanges, and other new areas

Required readings

Athanasoulis, Stefano, and Robert Shiller. “World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting Risk Sharing Opportunities.” American Economic Review 91, no. 4 (September 2001): 1031-1054.

———. “The Significance of the Market Portfolio.” Review of Financial Studies 13, no. 2 (2000): 301-329.

Acharya, Viral, and Alberto Bisin. “Centralized versus Over the Counter Markets.” Working paper, New York University, May 2009.

Readings for referee reports

Cabrales, Antonio, Antoni Calvo-Armengol, and Matthew Jackson. “La Crema: Fire Insurance in a Village Economy of Modern Day Europe.” Journal of Political Economy 111, no. 2 (2003): 425-458.

Dekel, Eddie, Matthew Jackson, and Asher Wolinsky. “Vote Buying: General Elections.” Journal of Political Economy 116, no. 2 (April 2008): 351-380.

Course Info

Instructor
Departments
As Taught In
Fall 2009
Level
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments