NBER researcher wins Nobel Prize in economics.

• Position: NBER News

NBER Research Associate Alvin Roth shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics with Lloyd Shapley. Roth is currently the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard University. At the end of this year, he will move to emeritus rank at Harvard, and join the Stanford Economics Department. He has been a Research Associate in the NBER's Labor Studies Program since 1999, and he is an active participant in the NBER's Market Design Working Group.

The award citation prepared by the Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences highlighted the researchers' work on "the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design." The prize citation explains that this year's award is for work on "a central economic problem: how to match different agents as well as possible. For example, students have to be matched with schools and donors of human organs with patients in need of a transplant. How can such matching be accomplished as efficiently as possible? What methods are beneficial to what groups?" This year's award recognizes both a conceptual...