# Alexey Kushnir
> Associate Professor of Economics with expertise in Microeconomics, Market Design, Mechanism Design, Auctions, and Game Theory.

## About
What drives me in academic work is addressing the challenges of fundamental economic theory and solving problems motivated by practical needs. My primary research interest lies in the domain of Microeconomics and, specifically, the fields of Mechanism and Market Design. In mechanism design, my work focuses on robust mechanisms, that is, mechanisms that are not sensitive to the fine details of the environment. In particular, I analyze the conditions under which a central planner can rely on robust mechanisms without sacrificing objectives such as efficiency or revenue maximization. In addition, my research extends to studying incentive-compatibility constraints and revenue-maximizing mechanisms in often difficult multi-dimensional environments. My work also develops an innovative geometric approach to mechanism design using classical tools from convex analysis. In market design, my earlier work focuses on the analysis of existing signaling mechanisms that have been employed for many years in job markets for new economists and new doctors. More recently, I have been interested in studying the allocation of course schedules to students in a many-to-many matching context. This work proposes a novel allocation mechanism that uses fake money and competitive equilibrium to allocate courses to students. Using simulations based on real-world university data, I then evaluate its performance against several well-known mechanisms.

I have also pursued successful research projects on subjects such as optimal income taxation, international trade, and organizational economics. In the following sections, I describe my publications, working papers, and work close to completion. I conclude by outlining my plans for future research.


## Key Expertise
- Economic Modeling and Problem Solving
- Microeconomnics 
- Market Design
- Mechanism Design
- Teaching

## Notable Projects
- On the Equivalence of Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Implementation (joint with Alex Gershkov, Jacob Goeree, Benny Moldovanu, and Xianwen Shi), Econometrica, 81(1), 197-220; 2013. Abstract: We consider a standard social choice environment with linear utilities and independent, one-dimensional, private types. We prove that for any Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism there exists an equivalent dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanism that delivers the same interim expected utilities for all agents and the same ex ante expected social surplus. The short proof is based on an extension of an elegant result due to Gutmann, Kemperman, Reeds, and Shepp (1991). We also show that the equivalence between Bayesian and dominant strategy implementation generally breaks down when the main assumptions underlying the social choice model are relaxed or when the equivalence concept is strengthened to apply to interim expected allocations. (URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA10592)
- Undergraduate Course Allocation through Competitive Markets (joint with Daniel Kornbluth). Abstract: Prevailing methods of course allocation at undergraduate institutions involve reserving seats to give priority to designated groups of students. We introduce a competitive equilibrium-based mechanism that assigns course seats using student preferences and course priorities. This mechanism satisfies approximate notions of stability, efficiency, envy-freeness, and strategy-proofness. We evaluate its performance relative to a mechanism widely used in practice using preferences estimated from university data. Our empirical findings demonstrate an improvement in student satisfaction and allocation fairness. The number of students who envy another student of weakly lower priority declines by 8 percent, or roughly 500 students.. (URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3901146)

## Online Presence
- Website: https://alexeykushnir.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexeykushnir/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QN5cCOsAAAAJ&hl=en

## Contact Information
- Email: alexey.kushnir@gmail.com
- Based in: Rabat, Morocco