Michael Giberson
The emerging field of economic systems design (or “market design”) has spawned a lot of fancy mathematics in the effort to better understand auctions and other economic systems and to apply that knowledge to make those systems better. Paul Klemperer, among others, has pointed out that “what really matters in auction design” is often just a matter of getting simple things right: encourage entry, discourage collusion and predatory practices.
Al Roth at Market Design provides current reminder of the importance of getting simple things right in the form of a news story on an economics student who disrupted a recent BLS auction of development rights to public land in a very simple way: he bid, but had no intention of paying.