Last spring, Leon Neyfakh of the Boston Globe profiled Alvin Roth, one of the two winners of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize for his contributions to economics. Roth’s work is of particular interest to enthusiasts for market-oriented public policy, as he is one of the inventors of market design, an approach that addresses market failures or weaknesses by reshaping markets rather than by embracing straightforward command-and-control.
Update! Matt Yglesias has written on the wider significance of Roth and his fellow winner, Lloyd Shapley.