Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley Won the Nobel Prize in 2012 for Developing the Theory of Stable Allocations and the Practice of Market Design

Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2012 for what the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences described as their contributions to solving "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?” The committee cited crucial theoretical work on game theory by Shapley and practical applications such as matching schools and students accomplished with Roth’s contributions. 

At the time of the award, Roth was the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard University. He was a research associate in the NBER's Labor Studies Program and a participant in the NBER's Market Design Working Group. Shapley was emeritus professor of economics and mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

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