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John Wooders is a Professor of Economics at NYU Abu Dhabi (since 2016), and a Global Network Professor of Economics at NYU. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Institutional Design and directs the Social Science Experimental Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and an Economic Theory Fellow. In 2011 he left the Unversity of Arizona to join the University of Technology Sydney as a Distinguish Research Professor and build a newly-established economics department. In the 2015 ERA (Excellence in Research Australia) rankings, Economics at UTS ranked second in Australia. While at UTS he led the establishment of a PhD program, based on best international practices, which admitted its first cohort of students in 2014. Professor Wooders founded the UTS Behavioural Laboratory.

His research develops novel theory and combines it with data from the field and the laboratory to understand strategic behavior in games and markets.

His recent theoretical work studies the problem of efficiently and fairly allocating heterogeneous items, priorities, positions, or rights to participants who have equal claims, e.g., allocating priority of service, allocating fishing rights to different geographical areas that differ in their desirability, or reorganizing business partnerships.

His recent empirical work shows that the behavior on the court of championship tennis players conforms more closely to theory as they are more highly ranked. Earlier work with Mark Walker pioneered the use of data from professional sports as a means of testing the empirical validity of game theory. It demonstrated that the serve-and-return behavior of professional tennis players is largely consistent with the theory of mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium. (See Walker and Wooders (2001), 300+ Google Scholar cites.) In contrast, the theory fares poorly in laboratory experiments. This work is routinely cited in undergraduate textbooks when introducing students to the notion of mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium. His work with Dan Houser was the first to investigate the effect of seller reputation on auction prices. (See Houser and Wooders (2006), 900+ Google Scholar cites.)

Wooders has published in the top international journals, including Econometrica, the American Economic Review, Theoretical Economics, the Journal of Economic Theory, and as well as numerous papers in Games and Economic Behavior and other leading journals. His research is broad, spanning auction theory, communication in games, and R&D spillovers. An ongoing line of research investigates the “mini-micro” foundations of competitive equilibrium, and develops game-theoretic models of markets in which trade is decentralized. This work provides important insights into how markets for financial assets may freeze or otherwise fail.

News

Asian School in Economic Theory, Jan. 6-10, 2025

Dual Auctions for Assigning Winners and Compensating Losers (with Matt van Essen) accepted at Economic Theory.

Expertise, Gender, and Equilibrium Play (with Romain Gauriot and Lionel Page), Quantitative Economics, 14 (2023), pp. 981-1020.

The newly-established Center of Behavioral Institutional Design.

Allocating Positions Fairly: Auctions and Shapley Value (with Matt Van Essen), Journal of Economic Theory 196 (2021), pp. 1-47.

Haifa-NYUAD Joint Seminar in Economics

From Minimax Play at Wimbledon (with Mark Walker), American Economic Review 91 (2001), 1521-1538.

From Dissolving A Partnership Dynamically (with Matt Van Essen), Journal of Economic Theory 166 (2016), pp. 212–241.

From Dynamic Markets for Lemons: Performance, Liquidity, and Policy Intervention (with Diego Moreno), Theoretical Economics 11 (2016), pp. 601-639.

From Dynamic Markets for Lemons: Performance, Liquidity, and Policy Intervention (with Diego Moreno), Theoretical Economics 11 (2016), pp. 601-639.

From Auctions with a Buy Price (with Stan Reynolds), Economic Theory 38 (2009), 9-39.