CBE Public Lecture - Mechanism and Market Design

Refreshments will be served following this public lecture.

Economists study how communities and society allocate scarce resources. Traditionally, economists have focused on markets, particularly competitive markets, as resource allocation mechanisms. At the same time, markets do not always efficiently allocate scarce resources.

Mechanism design addresses the general question of how to efficiently allocate scarce resources, particularly when markets do not work well. Mechanism design theory underpins the use of auctions in procurement and the allocation of electromagnetic spectrum.

Market design is mechanism design applied to specific economic problems, such as school choice and the allocation of medical interns to hospitals.

In this lecture, Professor George Mailath will explain what mechanism and market design are and why these fields are of central importance to economics.

About George Mailath

George J. Mailath is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has served as Chair of the Department, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director of Undergraduate Studies. George holds a visiting professorship at the ANU Research School of Economics.

Professor Mailath’s published research in microeconomics includes papers on pricing, noncooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory, repeated games, social norms, and the theory of reputations.