Professor Alvin Roth, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics at the Technion: "Increasing computing power has a significant impact on the labor market"

Prof. Roth opened the conference in memory of Professor Uriel Rothblum at the Technion and also received an honorary doctorate

"The increasing computing power has a significant impact on the labor market". This is what Professor Alvin Roth, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (2012), said at a conference held at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion in memory of Professor Uriel Rothblum. Last night Professor Roth received an "Honorary Doctor" degree at the Cortorium (Board of Trustees) session.

Professor Roth emphasized that the increasing computing power has a significant effect on the "match" between employers looking for employees and potential candidates - a match characterized by many market failures. "This is a very complex match, which requires advanced algorithms."

Professor Roth dropped out of high school at the age of 16 in favor of studying at Columbia University, and became one of the leading researchers in the field of "market design". He began his research on the issue of assigning specialist doctors to hospitals, and thus developed the assignment method used today in the USA. Among other things, he dealt with an optimal match between a candidate and a workplace, between a student and a university, between organ donors and patients who need these organs, etc. In his lecture at the Technion, he focused on the unique complexity of placing clinical psychologists in workplaces when it comes to pairs of interns (who met during their studies, and are now looking for work in the same area).

Professor Roth won the Nobel Prize (together with Professor Lloyd Shepley) for his pioneering work in the fields of market design, game theory and more. His approach goes beyond the "rationality assumption", which is the basis of many economic theories, and offers other tools for predicting economic behavior. Professor Roth was previously a member of the academic committee of the Technion's Curatorium, and this week he received an "honorary doctorate" degree from the Technion - "in recognition of your many significant contributions to the fields of game theory, market design and applied economics; In recognition of the application of economic theory to solve problems in the real world, and as a thank you for your deep dedication to the State of Israel, the Israeli Academy and the Technion."

Professor Roth talked about his many years of partnership with the late Professor Uriel Rothblum - the two were doing their doctorates at Stanford at the time. "Uriel was a bright and intelligent person, very dedicated to his work, and even when he held managerial positions (dean, for example) he did not neglect research. He was also very devoted to his family, and was very proud of his children. Many times, when I encountered a problem that I couldn't solve, I called him and he helped me a lot."

The conference was also attended by Professor Ed Kaplan, who specializes in allocating resources in the war on terrorism, and Dr. Guy Rotblum, Uriel's son, who works at Microsoft in Silicon Valley.

Performance research is a branch of research in which mathematical methods are developed and applied with the aim of making the best use of limited resources.