Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • June 2021
  • Article
  • Management Science

Making Marketplaces Safe: Dominant Individual Rationality and Applications to Market Design

By: Benjamin N. Roth and Ran I. Shorrer
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Often market designers cannot force agents to join a marketplace rather than using pre-existing institutions. We propose a new desideratum for marketplace design that guarantees the safety of participation: Dominant Individual Rationality (DIR). A marketplace is DIR if every pre-existing strategy is weakly dominated by some strategy within the marketplace. We study applications to the design of labor markets and the sharing economy. We also provide a general construction to achieve approximate DIR across a wide range of marketplace designs.

Keywords

Dominant Individual Rationality; Market Design; Safety

Citation

Roth, Benjamin N., and Ran I. Shorrer. "Making Marketplaces Safe: Dominant Individual Rationality and Applications to Market Design." Management Science 67, no. 6 (June 2021).
  • SSRN
  • Find it at Harvard

About The Author

Benjamin N. Roth

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • April 2025
    • Journal of Finance

    The Allocation of Socially Responsible Capital

    By: Daniel Green and Benjamin N. Roth
    • March 2025
    • Faculty Research

    GiveDirectly: Can Direct Cash Transfers End Extreme Poverty?

    By: Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth, Sarah Mehta and John Schultz
    • December 2024
    • Faculty Research

    Core Innovation Capital: Investing in Fintech for Good (B)

    By: Ray Kluender, Natalia Rigol, Benjamin Roth and Nicole Tempest Keller
More from the Authors
  • The Allocation of Socially Responsible Capital By: Daniel Green and Benjamin N. Roth
  • GiveDirectly: Can Direct Cash Transfers End Extreme Poverty? By: Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth, Sarah Mehta and John Schultz
  • Core Innovation Capital: Investing in Fintech for Good (B) By: Ray Kluender, Natalia Rigol, Benjamin Roth and Nicole Tempest Keller
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.