Category Archives: Mechanism Design

A good example of the importance of incentives

Posted on 2010/03/24 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Well, make this a bad example if you must. It is an example of bad incentives that produce bad outcomes. I am referring to the article by Bebchuk, Cohen, and Spamann in the Project Syndicate web site, in which the … Continue reading →

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What chess champion Gary Kasparov can teach us

Posted on 2010/02/18 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Recently, Gary Kasparov wrote an essay about humans and computers playing chess, under the guise of a book review. Andrew McAfee today published an essay on Kasparov’s ideas, with a specific focus on one observation by Kasparov. Kasparov noted that … Continue reading →

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Lecture Notes on Dominant Strategy Implementation

Posted on 2009/11/29 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Rather later than I was hoping, I am posting my lecture note on dominant strategy implementation. The notes are for my graduate microeconomics course at Temple University, and the book referenced is my book A Toolbox for Economic Design, co-authored … Continue reading →

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The pundits’ dilemma

Posted on 2009/10/18 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Mark Liberman says this in the Language Log today, among other good points: Overall, the promotion of interesting stories in preference to accurate ones is always in the immediate economic self-interest of the promoter. It’s interesting stories, not accurate ones, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mechanism Design, Public Economics, microeconomics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Paul Romer on Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel prize

Posted on 2009/10/12 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

My old teacher Paul Romer has a fantastic post on Ostrom’s prize award. A long quote follows, but I do strongly recommend the whole thing: Most economists think that they are building cranes that suspend important theoretical structures from a … Continue reading →

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Glaeser on the “Nobel” prize in economics

Posted on 2009/10/12 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Ed Glaeser has a nice essay explaining the work of the awardees of this year’s prize in the New York Times.

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Levitt on the “Nobel” prize in economics 2009

Posted on 2009/10/12 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Here is Steven Levitt admitting that he should have known about Ostrom. Nice to see an admission that over-narrowness is not very productive in science.

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Swedish National Bank’s Prize in memory of Alfred Nobel, 2009

Posted on 2009/10/12 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson for the honor they received. I wish I had time to discuss this properly right now, but class prep is calling. Meanwhile, here is a post by Alex Tabarrok on Wiliamson and one … Continue reading →

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Dan Pink on Motivation

Posted on 2009/08/27 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Here is a TED talk about the importance of intrinsic motivation for business. Thoroughly enjoyable, and it gives a good challenge to mechanism design theorists and economists in general. (Via www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com).

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Excellent undergraduate micro course

Posted on 2009/08/17 by Dimitrios Diamantaras

Jeff Ely at Northwestern University has an excellent page with notes on his undergraduate microeconomics course. (The whole blog in which this appears, Cheap Talk, is very interesting, and you can find a link to it in my blogroll on … Continue reading →

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