Introduction
I grew up in Manhattan, and have always been fascinated by markets. I'm told that as a six-year-old I would ask strangers (and worse, family members) what they paid in rent. I got the idea in college that I wanted to be a professional economist, but before graduate school I decided to work for two years as a mergers and acquisitions investment banker at Goldman Sachs. This was a great learning experience, and is always in the back of my mind when I think about the interaction of theory and practice.
My Research Interests
I am interested in institutions that improve resource allocation and correct market failures. There are interesting "market design" questions in many different areas of economics.
My specific research has focused on two kinds of markets: auction markets for goods with imperfect substitutes; and non-monetary markets for problems of "combinatorial assignment." The first line of research led to an idea for a "better eBay" that hasn't yet borne fruit. The second line of work led to the design of a better system for allocating schedules of courses to MBA students, or schedules of fixed-wage shifts to interchangeable workers. These are famously hard problems, because of constraints against using the traditional price system to balance supply and demand.
Methodologically, I am primarily a microeconomic theorist. But, I use empirical and computational analysis to complement my theoretical work, and the set of people I talk to is reasonably broad. One of my dissertation committee members is a computer scientist (David Parkes), and a graduate-school highlight for me was when, at a seminar at the Project of Justice, Welfare and Economics, Amartya Sen speculated that John Rawls would endorse my combinatorial assignment procedure as fair.
What motivates me is the thought that my research can, either in a short-term direct way, or in a longer-term less direct way, improve the efficacy of our market institutions.
The Business Economics Program
Harvard is a terrific place to be an economist. There are always great seminars to go to and visitors to talk to, and the faculty is of course first rate. A big part of my decision to come to Harvard was based on one specific faculty member, Alvin Roth, who has been a wonderful advisor. His wisdom and generosity are hard to describe.
The HBS Experience
My office is in Baker Library, and we have a great economics community, a mix of doctoral students and faculty. Dissertation writing could be a solitary experience, but somehow here it's not. My colleagues are always a few cubicles away to chat about research, go for a coffee break, or puzzle over current events. It's a cliché, but I've probably learned as much from my fellow students as I have from faculty.
After HBS
I'll be an assistant professor in the economics group at Chicago Booth.
Advice for prospective students
First, it's hard to appreciate how long it takes to write a good paper. My first "great idea" in graduate school may not have been so great. It's still hard to tell. Second, graduate school is much more like a job than like undergraduate. Try to evaluate it in the context of other career options. I personally got a lot from having my "first job" not be graduate school. Finally, I think the people who fit best at HBS are those who are excited about the interaction of theory and practice.