Syllabus (this syllabus is evolving and will be modified as the class proceeds. See also the University website)

This is a topics course in game theory. A variety of topics will be covered, but an emphasis is on mechanism/market design, such as matching theory and auction theory.

I will put emphasis on recent advances in the topic and present open questions so that interested students can promptly come to the frontier and begin their own research.

I will assign papers to read for each class, and sometimes ask students to present in front of the class.

 

Grading

Grading will be based on class participation (discussion, student presentations) and one final paper plus a midterm paper (added 12/29/2009).

* The deadline for the midterm is February 18th. I want you to write up either (1) a rough draft of the final or (2) a substantial literature review (updated 01/14/2010).

(1) I want you to encourage you to use the midterm assignment as opportunity to jump-start the final project.

* The deadline for the final paper is March 19th. You are welcome to use a paper that you are working on your own or for another class,
as long as it is on the topic of game theory and is appropriate in terms of relevance and quality.
This means that you can even use your work you submitted for my market design class last quarter as long as you make a substantial progress on the previous version.
This is not because I want to give you easy time, but to encourage you to write a paper that is very serious and potentially publishable.
So if you use a paper used for Econ 285, grading may be a bit more strict.

 *There are two presentations. One is tentatively scheduled on February 8th or 11th. Each presentation lasts about 20 minutes (including questions and answers)

You can choose either to (1) present your own research for the midterm paper, or (2) choose a paper written by someone else and present it.

For the papers to present, feel free to choose any paper on the reading list below that is not attached the asterisk (*). 

If you want to present something that is not on the list, write to me and we will figure out whether the paper is suitable for the class. (updated 01/14/2010). 

The other presentation is a presentation on the final paper, tentatively scheduled either on March 4th or 8th or 11th.

Each presentation lasts about 20 minutes (including questions and answers)

Joint projects are welcome. Let me know.

Prerequisite

Game theory at the 1st year PhD level.

Also it is strongly recommended that you have taken Econ 285, because some of the topics are based on the material covered there.

If not, please familiarize yourself with the topic, by taking a look at slides at

http://sites.google.com/site/economics285fall09/

Textbooks

Recommended textbooks are

Tow-Sided Matching by Roth and Sotomayor (1990) from Oxford University Press.

Putting Auction Theory to Work by Milgrom (2004) from Cambridge University Press.

I will also assign research papers.

 

Lecture Schedules and Topics: (the plan is tentative and may change depending on student interests and how the class proceeds.)

(* indicates required reading)

February 25th (Th): Combinatorial Auction Mechanisms

(Topics That We Will Probably not Cover but Seem Interesting)

Linear programming, network flow and market design

Assignment Messages and Exchanges, Paul Milgrom, AEJ-Micro 1:2, August 2009, 95-113.


A solution to the random assignment problem on the full preference domain, Akshay-Kumar Katta and  Jay Sethuraman. Journal of Economic Theory, 131(1):231-250, 2006.

House Allocation with Fractional Endowments,  Stergios Athanassoglou and Jay Sethuraman, mimeo.


Ozgur Yilmaz,  Random Assignment under Weak Preferences Games and Economic Behavior, forthcoming.

Sponsored search auctions

Benjamin Edelman and Michael Ostrovsky (2007), "Strategic Bidder Behavior in Sponsored Search Auctions", Decision Support Systems.

Benjamin Edelman, Michael Ostrovsky, and Michael Schwarz (2007),

"Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords", AER.

Hal R. Varian (2007), "Position Auctions", IJIO.

Mehmet B. Yenmez (2009), "Pricing in Position Auctions and Online Advertising", working paper.

Renato Gomes and Kane Sweeney (2009), "Bayes-Nash Equilibria of the Generalized Second Price", working paper (not available).

Michael Ostrovsky and Michael Schwarz (2009), "Optimal Auction Design: A Field Experiment", working paper.

Hashimoto, T. Equilibrium Selection and Inefficiency in Internet Advertising Auctions. (SSRN)


Dynamic Mechanism Design

Athey and Segal, “An Efficient Dynamic Mechanism," mimeo.

Utku Unver (2009), "Dynamic Kidney Exchange", REStud, forthcoming.

Pavan, Segal and Toikka (2009), "Dynamic Mechanism Design: Incentive Compatibility, Profit Maximization and Information Disclosure", working paper.


Communication Complexity, Social Choice and Implelentation

“Nash Implementation with Little Communication,” Ilya Segal, Theoretical Economics, forthcoming

“The Communication Cost of Selfishness,” Ronald Fadel and Ilya Segal, Journal of Economic Theory 144, 2009, pp. 1895-920

“The Communication Requirements of Social Choice Rules and Supporting Budget Sets,” Ilya Segal, Journal of Economic Theory, 136, September 2007, pp. 341-378


Other papers of interest

Christopher Avery and Jonathan Levin Early Admissions at Selective Colleges American Economic Review, forthcoming.

Ron Siegel, "All-Pay Contests." Econometrica, January 2009.

Ron Siegel, "Asymmetric Contests with Conditional Investments." American Economic Review, forthcoming. Online Appendix.