Al Roth: Entrepreneurial Economist

“I’ve always been interested in using mathematics to make the world work better.”

That’s Al Roth from a profile in Forbes.  Roth has applied heavy-duty theory to the very practical problems of matching doctors to residency programs, children to schools, economists to departments and kidneys to patients in a way that is stable, incentive-compatible, and maximizes the gains from exchange.  In my view, Roth is the most influential economist working today. Influential among other economists?  Yes.  But what I really mean is influential in the world.

Roth’s homepage has many introductory papers as well as more technical material, here is his blog, Market Design and here is good video, Roth at Google

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