Who Gets What - And Why: The Hidden World of Matchmaking and Market Design - Hardcover

Roth, Alvin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000752076X ISBN 13: 9780007520763

Publisher: HARPER COLLINS, 2015

Synopsis

A Nobel laureate reveals the often surprising rules that govern a vast array of activities — both mundane and life-changing — in which money may play little or no role.

If you’ve ever sought a job or hired someone, applied to college or guided your child into a good kindergarten, asked someone out on a date or been asked out, you’ve participated in a kind of market. Most of the study of economics deals with commodity markets, where the price of a good connects sellers and buyers. But what about other kinds of “goods,” like a spot in the Yale freshman class or a position at Google? This is the territory of matching markets, where “sellers” and “buyers” must choose each other, and price isn’t the only factor determining who gets what.

Alvin E. Roth is one of the world’s leading experts on matching markets. He has even designed several of them, including the exchange that places medical students in residencies and the system that increases the number of kidney transplants by better matching donors to patients. In Who Gets What — And Why, Roth reveals the matching markets hidden around us and shows how to recognize a good match and make smarter, more confident decisions.

About this title

About the Author

Alvin E. Roth is the McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and is one of the world's leading experts in the fields of market design and game theory. He was corecipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics.

Review

'Who Gets What is a pleasure to read. It's also a pleasure to discover that rare species, a humble economist. Humble but useful' Wall Street Journal 'In his fluent and accessible book, Roth vividly describes the successes of market design ... Roth discusses a huge array of fascinating market designs: from auctions for the sale of radio spectrum to high-frequency trading; from apartment lettings on Airbnb to sorority rushes; from the allocation of prestigious clerkships to the assignment of public-school places. Mr Roth has not managed to improve all of them, and his descriptions of failures are often as illuminating as the success stories' Economist 'An exciting practical approach to economics that enables both individuals and institutions to achieve their goals without running afoul of the profit motive' Kirkus 'This book's lessons are practical as well as theoretical. Understanding how matching markets operate can help readers navigate them more effectively. A solid match for readers in general economics and business collections' Library Journal 'He's perfectly brilliant and everyone knows it. But Roth is also an articulate and witty scientist with an impish sense of humour who can make even the most complicated idea seem so simple that you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself. Roth's thinking has revolutionised the design of the 'matching systems" Daniel Gilbert, author of the best-selling Stumbling on Happiness 'Al Roth is a brilliantly original thinker, but he has spent his entire career solving real, practical problems. He designs markets, but has thought harder than anyone about the ethics and emotions of the marketplace. What's more, he saves lives. Not in some abstract sense: he has saved the lives of real people, and you can shake their hands, look them in the eye, and hear them tell you how he did it. We need more economists like him' Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist

Edition details

• Publisher: HARPER COLLINS
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 000752076X
• ISBN 13: 9780007520763
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272