description Alvin Roth Overview
Alvin Roth is an American economist at Stanford who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for the theory and practice of market design, redesigning medical residency matches and school-choice systems in the United States.
insights Ranking position
Alvin Roth ranks #39 of 253 in the Economist ranking, behind Eric Maskin, ahead of Douglas Diamond.
help Alvin Roth FAQ
How did Alvin Roth change the medical residency match?
Roth helped analyze and redesign the system that matches new doctors with residency programs in the United States. The National Resident Matching Program adopted a redesigned algorithm in the late 1990s to better handle couples and changing applicant patterns.
What does Alvin Roth mean by a repugnant transaction?
A repugnant transaction is an exchange that some people want to conduct but society restricts because others find it morally unacceptable. Roth used examples such as organ sales to show that market design must account for social norms as well as prices.
How does kidney exchange work without buying or selling organs?
Kidney exchange pairs an incompatible donor-recipient pair with another pair whose donor is compatible with the first recipient. Matching algorithms can build two-way exchanges or longer chains while preserving the legal prohibition on organ sales.
Why did Alvin Roth share the 2012 Nobel Prize with Lloyd Shapley?
Shapley developed foundational theory for stable matching, including work associated with the Gale-Shapley algorithm. Roth demonstrated how matching theory could redesign real institutions such as residency assignments, school choice, and kidney exchange.
explore Explore More
Similar to Alvin Roth
See all arrow_forward
Reviews & Comments
Write a Review
Be the first to review
Share your thoughts with the community and help others make better decisions.
