At 10 a.m., on April 1, 2021, Assistant Professor Zhang Hanzhe of Michigan State University delivered an academic lecture at the 105th Session of Chen Daisun Theoretical Economics Lecture on the theme of “Decentralized Matching with Transfer: Experimental and Noncooperative Analyses”. Mr. Zhang is a doctor in Economics at the University of Chicago (taught by Garg Becker and Phi Renny). His main research field is the application of microeconomic theory, including the application of matching theory in family and marriage economics, bargaining theory, auction theory and evolutionary economics theory. His research results as the independent author have been published in the Journal of Political Economy, European Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior and other journals.
Assistant Professor Zhang Hanzhe first introduced the research background. Since Koopmans and Beckmann (1957) and Shapley and Shubik (1972) proposed the decentralized matching with transfer (also known as transferable utility matching model), the theory has been widely used in the study of marriage and labor market. However, few experimental studies focus on the transferable utility matching model, and whether people’s behavior is really as predicted by the model remains to be studied. Accordingly, Professor Zhang introduced the main research work and reviewed the literature. Then, he vividly showed the basic setting of the utility matching model with transfer and people’s behaviors in different situations by combining the theoretical model with the case, and introduced the competition, efficiency and coordination and other issues in the equilibrium and non-equilibrium markets. He also described the experimental design and presented and explained the empirical results. Finally, he introduced the explanatory power of new non-cooperative game model on the equilibrium results in equilibrium and non-equilibrium markets.
After the speech, students actively asked questions and Professor Zhang answered the questions in detail. Then, Assistant Professor Xie Danxia summarized and commented on Zhang’s speech.
Contributed by Yang Buyuan
