ECC3610 · Market design

Overview

Market design is a fast-growing area of economics that focuses on how the rules of a market shape outcomes. In this unit, you will learn to analyse and improve real-world markets - from school choice and kidney exchange to online platforms, spectrum auctions, and water allocation. You’ll explore the design of matching markets, auctions, and platforms and examine how different rules affect incentives, efficiency, fairness, and participation. One of the goals of this unit is to demonstrate how economic theory can be applied to solve practical problems faced by governments, businesses, and non-profits. This unit will equip you with a toolkit for market design that is valuable for further study or careers in public policy, consulting, and economics research.

Offerings

The Handbook publishes no offerings for this unit.

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

Learning outcomes

1. identify situations in which markets fail to deliver desirable outcomes and recognise when design or intervention is needed
2. evaluate efficiency, equity, and incentives in a variety of different market designs, including matching, auctions, and platforms
3. model and analyse market institutions using tools from game theory and mechanism design
4. apply core market design concepts to real-world settings such as school choice, organ exchange, digital platforms, and resource allocation
5. communicate the insights of market design analysis clearly and effectively to both specialist and non-specialist audiences
6. possess technical proficiency to pursue Honours and Masters level research.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. You are expected to complete all pre-class activities prior to your scheduled class, and post-class activities should be completed after your scheduled class. Learning activities may include a combination of teacher directed, peer directed and online engagement activities.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.