Marek Pycia

Professor of Economics, University of Zurich



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Publications in Economics

A Theory of Simplicity in Games and Mechanism Design, with P. Troyan. Econometrica 91(4), 1495-1526 (2023).

Best Paper Award at the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation EC'19.

Exemplary Theory Track Paper Award at the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation EC'19.

Abstract published in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation EC'19.

Matching with Externalities, with M. B. Yenmez. The Review of Economic Studies 90(2), 948-974 (2023).

Pseudomarkets. In: Online and Matching-Based Market Design. Eds. Federico Echenique, Nicole Immorlica, and Vijay V. Vazirani. Cambridge University Press 2023.

Outside Options in Neutral Discrete Resource Allocation, with U. Unver. Review of Economic Design 26, 581–604 (2022). Special Issue in Honor of Semih Koray: Well-Designed Incentive Schemes.

Foundations of Pseudomarkets: Walrasian Equilibria for Discrete Resources, with A. Miralles. Journal of Economic Theory 196, 1-24 (2021) 105303.

Quantile Stable Mechanisms, with P. Chen, M. Egesdal, and M. B. Yenmez. Games 12(2) 43, 1-9 (May 2021, Special Issue “School Choice”).

Technological Change and Market Design. In: J-F. Laslier, H. Moulin, R. Sanver, and W. S. Zwicker, eds., Future of Economic Design, Springer Series on Studies in Economic Design. Springer 2019. Pp. 535-539.

A Pseudo-Market Approach to Assignment with Priorities, with Y. He, A. Miralles, and J. Yan. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 10(3), 272-314 (August 2018).

The American Economic Association 2019 AEJ Best Paper Award.

Vouchers for Future Kidney Transplants to Overcome 'Chronological Incompatibility' Between Living Donors and Recipients, with J. Veale, A. Capron, N. Nassiri, G. Danovitch, H. A. Gritsch, A. Waterman, J. Del Pizzo, J. Hu, S. McGuire, M. Charlton, and S. Kapur. Transplantation 101(9), 2115-2119 (September 2017).

The paper led to the creation of the kidney voucher program at the US National Kidney Registry (NKR). As of 2021, the vouchers are responsible for about 40% of the over 1000 kidneys that are annually donated through the NKR and they facilitate an even larger percentage of kidney exchanges. Media coverage: Al Roth’s Blog, The Boston Globe, CBS, CNN, Fox News, Huffington Post, New Scientist, Reuters, TIME, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.

Incentive Compatible Allocation and Exchange of Discrete Resources, with U. Unver. Theoretical Economics 12, 287-329 (January 2017).

Older draft provides details on outside options and Lorenz dominance.

Related notes: Theoretical Economics Online Supplement to “Incentive Compatible Allocation and Exchange of Discrete Resources.” with U. Unver.

Trading Cycles for School Choice, with U. Unver.

Manipulability of Stable Mechanisms, with P. Chen, M. Egesdal, and M. B. Yenmez. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 8(2), May 2016, pp. 202-214.

Median Stable Matchings in Two-Sided Markets, with P. Chen, M. Egesdal, and M. B. Yenmez. Games and Economic Behavior 97, May 2016, pp. 64-69.

Decomposing Random Mechanisms, with Utku Unver, Journal of Mathematical Economics 61, August 2015, pp. 21–33.

Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions, with L. Ausubel, P. Cramton, M. Rostek, M. Weretka, Review of Economic Studies 81(4), 2014, pp. 1366-1400.

Outside Options and the Failure of the Coase Conjecture, with Simon Board, American Economic Review 104(2), February 2014, pp. 656–671.

Older draft provides details on search with correlated types.

Stability and Preference Alignment in Matching and Coalition Formation, Econometrica 80(1), January 2012, pp. 323362.

Related notes: Econometrica Online Supplement to “Stability and Preference Alignment in Matching andCoalition Formation.”

Non-Existence Result for Matching Games with Transfers,

Dynamic Inconsistency and Self-Control: A Planner-Doer Interpretation, with Roland Bénabou, Economic Letters 77(3), November 2002, pp. 419424.



Revision Requested

Auctions of Homogeneous Goods: A Case for Pay-as-Bid, with K. Woodward.

Revision requested by the Journal of Political Economy.

One-paragraph abstract accepted at the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation EC'21.

Supplementary Results for Pycia and Woodward (2023)

Ordinal Efficiency, Fairness, and Incentives in Large Markets, with Q. Liu.

Revision requested by the Review of Economic Studies.

Related notes:

Ordinal Efficiency, Fairness, and Incentives in Large Multi-Unit-Demand Assignments.

Assignment with Multiple-Unit Demands and Responsive Preferences.

Older draft provides details on a small-market characterization of Probabilistic Serial.

Ordinal Simplicity and Auditability in Discrete Mechanism Design, with U. Unver.

Revision requested by the International Economic Review.

Large vs. Continuum Assignment Economies, with A. Miralles.

Revision requested at Games and Economic Behavior.

Non-bossiness and First-Price Auctions, with M. Raghavan.

Revision requested by the Journal of Economic Theory.



Other Working Papers

Efficient Bilateral Trade, with R. Garratt.

One-paragraph abstract published in the Proceedings of The Third Conference on Auctions, Market Mechanisms and Their Applications.

Evaluating with Statistics: Which Outcome Measures Differentiate Among Matching Mechanisms?

Previously titled “Invariance and Matching Market Outcomes.” Invited as keynotes at MATCH-UP 2017 and Matching in Practice 2017.

Information Choice: Cost over Content, with K. Madarasz.

Pollution Permits: Efficiency by Design, with K. Woodward.

Directed Search and the Futility of Cheap Talk, with K. Mirkin.

Stochastic vs Deterministic Mechanisms in Multidimensional Screening. My M.Phil. (DEEQA) thesis Generic Optimality of Stochastic Mechanisms in Multidimensional Screening, with some later additions and edits.

Markets and Transaction Costs, with S. Jantschgi, H. Nax, and B. Pradelski.

Double Auctions: A Unified Treatment, with S. Jantschgi, H. Nax, and B. Pradelski.

The Cost of Ordinality.

Swaps on Networks.

Efficient Trade with Interdependent Values, with P. Wang.

The First-Price Principle of Maximizing Economic Objectives, with Byeong-hyeon Jeong.

Strategy-proof, Efficient, and Fair Allocation: Beyond Random Priority, with P. Troyan.

Obviously Strategyproof Mechanisms in General Environments, with P. Troyan.





Publications in Mathematics (written in high-school and college)

‘‘Linear Functional Inequalities,’’ Dissertationes Mathematicae 438 (2006), 1-62.

The Polish Mathematical Society's 2006 Marek Kuczma Award for the best paper on functional equations, inequalities, and discrete dynamical systems written by a Polish author.

‘‘A Short Proof of the Regularity of s-Convex Functions,’’ Aequationes Mathematicae 61 (2001), No. 1-2, 128-130.

‘‘A Convolution Inequality,’’ Aequationes Mathematicae 57 (1999), No. 2-3, 185-200.

The Polish Mathematical Society's 1999 Marek Kuczma Award for one of the three best papers on functional equations, inequalities, and discrete dynamical systems written by a Polish author.

‘‘Positive Homogeneous Functionals Related to Lp-Norms,’’ with J. Matkowski, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications 200 (1996), 245-253.

‘‘On the Volume of Convex Hulls of Sets on Spheres,’’ with R. Latała, Geometriae Dedicata 63 (1996), 153-157.

‘‘A Proof of a Conjecture of Bobkov and Houdré,’’ with S. Kwapień i W.Schachermayer, Electronic Communications in Probability 1 (1996), paper 2.

‘‘On (α,a)-Convex Functions,’’ with J. Matkowski, Archiv der Mathematik 64 (1995), 132-138.

‘‘Convex-like Inequality, Homogeneity and a Characterization of Lp-Norm,’’ with J. Matkowski, Annales Polonici Mathematici 60 (1995), 221-230.

‘‘On a General Solution of Finite Order Difference Equations with Constant Coefficients,’’ Archivum Mathematicum 28 (1992), 237-240.