On 2 November 2020, TINT will host a seminar titled “Winner’s Curse? A Discussion on the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics“. The speakers are Hannu Vartiainen and Beatrice Cherrier.

The seminar will take place online via Zoom from 2 to 5 pm (Helsinki time). If you’d like to join please visit TINT’s blog.

If you’d like to get prepared for this event or read more about this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, here is a reading list. I hope you’ll find it useful.

2020 Nobel Prize in Economics Reading list

(Some of the articles are be behind a paywall, sorry)

Introductory articles for the uninitiated

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (2020, October 12). The quest for the perfect auction. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2020/09/popular-economicsciencesprize2020.pdf
• Klarreich, E. (2003). The Bidding Game. Washington, D.C., USA: National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/publications/beyond-discovery/the-bidding-game.pdf

Blog Posts

• Bryan, K. (2020, October 12). Operations Research and the Rise of Applied Game Theory – A Nobel for Milgrom and Wilson. A Fine Theorem. https://afinetheorem.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/operations-research-and-the-rise-of-applied-game-theory-a-nobel-for-milgrom-and-wilson/
• Cowen, T. (2020a, October 12). Paul Milgrom, Nobel Laureate. Marginal REVOLUTION. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/10/paul-milgrom-nobel-laureate.html
• Cowen, T. (2020b, October 12). Robert B. Wilson, Nobel Laureate. Marginal REVOLUTION. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/10/robert-wilson-nobel-laureate.html
• Tabarrok, A. (2020, October 12). The Nobel Prize: Milgrom and Wilson. Marginal REVOLUTION. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/10/the-nobel-prize-milgrom-and-wilson.html.
• Taylor, T. (2020, October 12). A Nobel Prize for Auction Theory: Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson. CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST. https://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-nobel-prize-for-auction-theory-paul.html.
• Roth, A. (2020, October 12). Finally! Paul Milgrom and Bob Wilson win the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics. Market Design. https://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2020/10/finally-paul-milgrom-and-bob-wilson.html

Introductory articles

• The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. (2020, October 12). Improvements to auction and inventions of new auction formats. Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2020. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2020/09/advanced-economicsciencesprize2020.pdf
• Roth, A. E., & Wilson, R. B. (2019). How Market Design Emerged from Game Theory: A Mutual Interview. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(3), 118–143. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.3.118
• Wilson, R. B. (2021). Strategic Analysis of Auctions. Econometrica, 89(2), 555–561. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19347

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Prize related work

• Alexandrova, A., & Northcott, R. (2009). Progress in Economics: Lessons from the Spectrum Auctions. In D. Ross & H. Kincaid (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics (pp. 306–336). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195189254.003.0011
• Boldyrev, I. A. (2012). Philosophy of Science or Science and Technology Studies? Economic Methodology and Auction Theory. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 26(3), 289–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2012.731732
• Cherrier, B., & Saïdi, A. (2020). A Century of Economics and Engineering at Stanford. History of Political Economy, 52, 85–111. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717936
• Hitzig, Z. (2020). The normative gap: mechanism design and ideal theories of justice. Economics and Philosophy, 36(3), 407–434. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267119000270
• Guala, F. (2001). Building economic machines: The FCC auctions. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 32(3), 453–477. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681(01)00008-5
• McAfee, R. P., McMillan, J., & Wilkie, S. (2012). The Greatest Auction in History. In J. J. Siegfried (Ed.), Better Living through Economics (pp. 168–184). Harvard: Harvard University Press.
• Nik-Khah, E. (2008). A tale of two auctions. Journal of Institutional Economics, 4(01). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137407000859

Exchange between Promarket.org authors & Milgrom

• Weyl, E. G. (2020a, May 28). How Market Design Economists Helped Engineer a Mass Privatization of Public Resources. Pro Market. https://promarket.org/2020/05/28/how-market-design-economists-engineered-economists-helped-design-a-mass-privatization-of-public-resources/
• Feltri, S. (2020, May 28). It Is Such a Small World: The Market-Design Academic Community Evolved in a Business Network. Pro Market. https://promarket.org/2020/05/28/it-is-such-a-small-world-the-market-design-academic-community-evolved-in-a-business-network/
• Milgrom, P. (2020, June 3). The Market Design Community and the Broadcast Incentive Auction: Fact-Checking Glen Weyl’s and Stefano Feltri’s False Claims. Auctionomics. http://www.auctionomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Fact-checking-Weyl-and-Feltri.2.pdf
• Schechter, A. (2020, June 17). Was the 2017 FCC Spectrum Auction a Success—or a Disappointing Failure? Pro Market. https://promarket.org/2020/06/17/was-the-2017-fcc-spectrum-auction-a-success-or-a-disappointing-failure/
• Weyl, E. G. (2020b, June 19). Should We Leave Public Resource Allocation to the Experts? Glen Weyl Responds to Paul Milgrom. Pro Market. https://promarket.org/2020/06/19/should-we-leave-public-resource-allocation-to-the-experts-glen-weyl-responds-to-paul-milgrom/

Some Twitter comments

• Here is a Tweet from Branco Milanovic that triggered some reaction on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1315707920890425345
  
• Here is a thread where Milanovic explains his initial comment: https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1315841880874254336
• Here is reply to Milanovic’s by Noah Smith: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1316777689697587201
• Here is a reply from Paul Krugman: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1316395037417238530