ERP-HSG Lecture with Prof. Tayfun Sönmez: “Minimalist Market Design for Organ Transplantation”

Kidney exchange was a pioneering application in early market design. Unlike most successful applications – where design economists primarily serve as con­sultants – kidney exchange researchers acted as outsider critics, reshaping re­al-world practices and institutions. Drawing on these experiences and lessons from school choice reforms in the 2000s, Sönmez (2023) introduces “mini­malist market design” as a novel institutional paradigm. This framework has already delivered tangible results, including the 2021 reform of the US Army’s cadet branching system and the establishment of reserve systems for vaccine and therapy allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 

In this lecture, Prof. Sönmez will draw on two decades of experience develo­ping kidney and liver exchange clearinghouses in the United States and Turkey to demonstrate how this “minimally invasive” institution design framework has been pivotal in enhancing market design research’s impact on policy.
 

Tayfun Sönmez is Professor of Economics at Boston College. He is a world-lea­ding microeconomist renowned for his contributions to game theory, market design, and mechanism design. He has produced major breakthroughs in the field of matching theory, particularly in the development of algorithms for mat­ching markets such as college admissions and organ transplants. Prof. Sönmez is also celebrated for his work on the theory of stable matching and its practical applications in real-world markets. His research has influenced both theoreti­cal and applied economics, earning him a prominent position in the academic community and contributing to a deeper understanding of how individuals and institutions interact within structured markets.
 

The lecture will be in English. You are kindly invited to a buffet lunch after the lecture. Please find more information at: erp.unisg.ch