Problems in Applied Market Design

经济分析在塑造市场规则和制度的设计方面发挥着越来越大的作用。在拍卖和市场设计领域，思想现在从研究前沿迅速转化为实践，为政府的无线电频谱分配政策提供信息，被纳入限额和交易政策、不良资产购买和宽带刺激计划的建议中，并为b谷歌等私营部门公司提供新的方法和途径，这些公司已经迅速利用了有关拍卖和市场组织的新思想。本项目运用经济学理论与实证方法相结合的方法来理解市场设计中的一系列应用问题。第一个问题与无线电频谱拍卖的设计和实施有关，现在许多国家在联邦通信委员会的领导下定期进行拍卖。该研究记录了过去拍卖中各种令人惊讶的竞标模式，并解释了战略竞标的作用。第二个项目研究大学招生市场。研究者记录了一系列关于使用早期招生计划的经验事实，并开发了一个博弈论模型，该模型与经验模式相匹配，并解释了学生和大学面临的战略选择。第三个项目研究销售过期商品的问题，并将其实证应用于图形互联网广告市场。该项目开发了一种估算易腐货物随时间推移的需求的方法，并比较了拍卖机制和传统谈判等竞争销售方式。最后一个项目分析了先进的市场承诺机制，该机制被提议作为一种基于市场的方法，鼓励为发展中国家开发疫苗。这项研究建立在设计目前正在实施的肺炎疫苗计划时产生的想法之上，因此检查了该计划的早期表现，并探索了其他激励机制。该建议还强调了在拨款过程中可能出现的市场设计方面的其他理论和实证问题，并导致富有成效的创新。

Economic analysis has played an increasing role in shaping the design of market rules and institutions. In the field of auctions and market design, ideas now move rapidly from the research frontier into practice, informing government policy on the allocation of radio spectrum, being incorporated into proposals for cap and trade policy, troubled asset purchases, and broadband stimulus, and providing new methods and approaches for private sector firms such as Google that have been quick to capitalize on new ideas about auctions and market organization. This project uses a combination of economic theory and empirical methods to understand a series of applied problems in market design. The first problem relates to the design and implementation of radio spectrum auctions, now run regularly by many countries following the lead of the FCC. The research documents a variety of surprising bidding patterns in past auctions and explains the role of strategic bidding. A second project studies the college admissions market. The investigator documents a set of empirical facts about the use of early admissions programs and develops a game-theoretic model that matches the empirical patterns and explains the strategic choices facing students and colleges. A third project studies the problem of selling dated goods, with an empirical application to the market for graphical internet advertising. This project develops an approach to estimating demand for perishable goods when buyers arrive over time and compares competing sales approaches such as auction mechanisms and traditional negotiation. The last project analyzes advanced market commitment mechanisms, which have been proposed as a market-based approach to encourage the development of vaccines for developing countries. The research builds on ideas that arose in designing a program for pneumoccal vaccine that is now being implemented, and so examines the early performance of that program as well as exploring alternative incentive mechanisms.The proposal also highlights additional theoretical and empirical problems in market design that may arise and lead to fruitful innovations during the course of the grant.