Alvin Roth

Biography

Alvin E. Roth is the Winner of the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

He is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University & the Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University.

His research, teaching, and consulting interests are in game theory, experimental economics, and market design.

Among the matching markets he has helped redesign are the National Resident Matching Program, which matches approximately twenty thousand doctors a year with residency programs at American hospitals.

As chair of the American Economic Association's Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, Professor Roth has helped redesign the matching market for newly-graduating PhD economists.

In addition to his work redesigning matching markets, Professor Roth has helped design entirely new matching markets. He is a co-founder and designer of the New England Program for Kidney Exchange for incompatible patient-donor pairs.

He was the President of the American Economic Association in 2017.

He is a Fellow of Econometric Society & the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1983, he was the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has also recieved an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

Consulting/Advisory Engagements (Selected)

BandwidthX, BehaveHealth, Didi (Economics Advisory Board, until 2021), Google (Faculty Advisor, since June 2020), InitialView, Luohan Academy, Tremor, Neuralight

Articles (Selected)

Ashlagi, Itai, and Alvin E. Roth. Kidney Exchange: An Operations Perspective. Management Science 67, no. 9 (September 2021): 5455–5478. 

Roth, Alvin E. Marketplaces, Markets, and Market Design. American Economic Review 108, no. 7 (July 2018): 1609–1658.

Niederle, Muriel, Alvin E. Roth, and M. Utku Ünver. Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation. Games 4, no. 2 (June 2013): 243–282. (Special Issue on Games and Matching Markets.)

Kojima, Fuhito, Parag A. Pathak, and Alvin E. Roth. Matching with Couples: Stability and Incentives in Large Markets. Quarterly Journal of Economics 128, no. 4 (November 2013): 1585–1632.

Coles, Peter A., John Cawley, Phillip B. Levine, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth, and John J. Siegfried. The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives 24, no. 4 (Fall 2010): 187–206. 

Kessler, Judd B., and Alvin E. Roth. Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to Donate. American Economic Review 102, no. 5 (August 2012): 2018–2047. 

Leider, Stephen, and Alvin E. Roth. Kidneys for Sale: Who Disapproves, and Why? American Journal of Transplantation 10, no. 5 (May 2010): 1221–1227.

Roth, Alvin E. The Art of Designing Markets. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 10 (October 2007): 118–126.

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

Known For

Designing and Improving Matching Markets

Advancing The Idea of ‘Economic Engineering’

Awards

2013 Member of the National Academy of Sciences

2013 Golden Goose Award

2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

1990 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize

1983 Guggenheim Fellowship

1983 Fellow of the Econometric Society

Born

1951

Education

Ph.D. Operations Research, Stanford University

M.S. Operations Research, Stanford University

B.S. Operations Research, Columbia University

Doctoral Dissertation

Topics in Cooperative Game Theory

Doctoral Supervisor

Robert Wilson

Institutions

Stanford University

Harvard University

University of Pittsburgh

University of Illinois

Fields

Game Theory

Experimental Economics

Topics

Market Design

“Mr. Roth’s work has been to discover the most efficient and equitable methods of matching, and implement them in the world. He writes with verve and style . . . Who Gets What—and Why is a pleasure to read.” — Wall Street Journal
 
“A book filled with wit, charm, common sense, and uncommon wisdom.” — Paul Milgrom, professor of economics, Stanford University and Stanford Business School

“In his fluent and accessible book, Mr. Roth vividly describes the success of market design.” — The Economist

“This handbook provides an insightful set of articles on the impact of economics and game theory on the development of structures to solve market design problems. Bringing together the latest research in this growing field, the editors provide a detailed overview on how market mechanisms can be used to solve problems of matching and exchange. By describing unique market designs not looked at by financial professionals, it offers a different perspective on solutions to exchange-trading problems.

For any reader seeking a broader vision of how markets could operate, this is a compelling work. The breadth of innovative research on market designs should open the reader's imagination to the vast possibilities in this exciting subject area.”

-- CFA Institute

"I wish every economist and economics graduate student would read this book. Those who are considering running experiments should be forced to; this is a bible in how to run good experiments. Every chapter is amazingly comprehensive and has been written by a true expert in the field. But economists who would never dream about running an experiment can benefit from reading this just as much. The beauty of experiments is that they force theorists to think carefully about their theories."―Richard Thaler, Cornell University [Now University of Chicago]

"The Handbook is not only a contribution to experimental economics, it is a major contribution to social science. It successfully combines the rigor and clarity of economic analysis with a commitment to open-minded examination of data, and a refreshing willingness to question dogma. Every student of human choice and action will find this text useful."―Daniel Kahneman, The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University