Economist to present Nobel-winning research at KU

LAWRENCE — Alvin Roth won a 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics for his ability to design practical markets for services we don't like to put prices on. From essential demands like kidney donation to the less palatable dwarf tossing, Roth has analyzed and devised systems that allow necessary markets to exist despite their moral repugnance.

Roth will present “Not for Sale! Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, at the Lied Center. The presentation is free and open to the public.

He is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Gund Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

In 2012, he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on finding practical applications to markets where price isn’t a factor. His research focuses on game theory, experimental economics and market design. Through his research, Roth directed the redesign of the National Resident Matching Program, through which approximately 25,000 doctors a year find their first employment as residents at U.S. hospitals.

He has also helped in the reorganization of the market for more senior physicians as they pursue subspecialty training as well as for other labor markets. Roth helped design the high school matching system used in New York City to match approximately 90,000 students to high schools each year.

Roth also helped redesign the matching system used in Boston Public Schools for students of all ages. More recently he has helped design school choice systems in several other large American cities. He is one of the founders and designers of kidney exchange in the United States, which helps incompatible patient-donor pairs find life-saving compatible kidneys for transplantation.

His talk is part of the Bold Aspirations Visitor and Lecture Series, which highlights eminent guests and KU scholars related to the four strategic initiative themes of KU’s Bold Aspirations. Past lecturers include Nobel laureate Robert Merton and Timothy Egan, author of KU’s Common Book, “The Worst Hard Time.” The lecture is sponsored by the School of Business and departments of Economics and Philosophy.

Media are invited to attend.