M. Bumin Yenmez

Professor of Economics
Boston College

Curriculum Vitae      

Google Scholar

Research Fields: 

• Market and Mechanism Design

• Choice Theory

Research Topics: 

• Affirmative Action and Diversity

• Intradistrict and Interdistrict School Choice

• Organ Allocation

• Externalities and Peer Effects

• Fair Resource Allocation

Mini Lecture on Matroids and Matching:
I gave a mini lecture entitled "Matroids and Matching" in Fall 2022. I got several requests for the lecture slides. I am posting them here in case anyone finds them helpful. Lecture 1 is based on classical papers in matching with a new proof on the existence of stable matchings using path independence of choice rules (for path independence see Chambers and Yenmez (2017)). Lecture 2 is mostly based on a recent work with Battal Dogan and Kenzo Imamura. Lecture 3 is based on another recent paper with Isa Hafalir, Fuhito Kojima, and Koji Yokote (I was asked to emphasize my earlier related work on distributional constraints in this presentation). You can find both working papers below. Please let me know if you have any comments.

• Lecture 1: Theory of Stable Matchings: A Brief Review

• Lecture 2: Matroids and the Greedy Rule in Matching

• Lecture 3: Design on Matroids: Diversity vs. Meritocracy

Policy Opinions on Affirmative Action in India published in Ideas for India (with Orhan Aygun and Bertan Turhan) 

• Challenges of executing EWS reservation efficiently (Hindi version: लेख )

• Improving admissions to technical colleges in India

Policy Impact:
We introduced an affirmative action policy based on reserves in Hafalir, Yenmez, and Yildirim (2013). Reserves have been implemented in practice in a variety of settings listed below. We also study more general/other reservation policies in Ehlers, Hafalir, Yildirim, and Yenmez (2014) (which incorporates Ehlers (2007)), Echenique and Yenmez (2015), and Pathak, Sonmez, Unver and Yenmez (2020).

1. Pre-K to 12 student assignment in New York City has reserves (discussed in this website, see, e.g,  District 15 website for the implementation of reserves),
2. Pre-K to 12 student assignment in Chile implements a reserve for different groups (discussed in this paper),
3. After the circulation of our paper (Pathak, Sonmez, Unver, and Yenmez, 2020),  the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has recommended a ten percent reserve for  the most vulnerable populations in the society (see the webpage) and various states have implemented reserves in practice (e.g., Massachusetts)
4. A reserve mechanism has also been implemented in Israel (discussed in this paper).
5. After the circulation of our paper, Sonmez and Yenmez (2019), the Supreme Court of India has revoked the previously used allocation method for the joint implementation of the so-called horizontal and vertical reservations in India and endorsed the allocation rule that we earlier advocated in our paper (see the judgement Saurav Yadav v State of U.P. (2020)). 

Together with Lars Ehlers, I am co-organizing an online seminar series called Frontiers of Economic Design. Check out the webinar webpage and sign-up for more information.