Abstract
This book is a pedagogical and non-technical introduction to the axiomatic approach to economic design. It starts with a programmatic statement and an outline of the scope of the literature on design. Its central objective is to present the axiomatic method, which has played a critical role in important recent developments that have occurred in a great variety of areas of design. It addresses basic questions. What is an axiom? What does an axiomatic study consist of? What is the axiomatic program about? This introduction is in the form of a conversation. I picture a young colleague curious about economic design for having come across some studies in the field or attended a seminar about design, perhaps looking to develop a new course, and asking questions. A graduate student in economics hunting for a research topic and an advanced undergraduate in economics eager to explore alternatives to the standard curriculum may also be interested in a non-technical introduction to the subject.
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Notes
- 1.
Usually called the “deferred acceptance mechanism”. Common terminology is often unsatisfactory, and transparent language is needed when attempting to communicate with non-economists. I’ll have multiple occasions in this book to question the language we use and I’ll not hesitate. The expression I’m using as a substitute for the one that is used in the technical literature is motivated by a simple observation I’ve made: When asked to describe this mechanism, virtually everyone, and that includes researchers specialized in the subject, describes acceptance at each step as being “tentative”, or “provisional”, or “temporary”, but never “deferred”. “Deferred admission” is something else altogether and that’s another reason to look for some other term.
- 2.
Condorcet lived from 1743 to 1794. The “Esquisse..” was published posthumously in 1795. All subsequent editions were also posthumous.
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Thomson, W. (2023). Introduction. In: The Axiomatics of Economic Design, Vol. 1. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29398-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29398-6_1
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