Alvin Roth

Well...

Economists have a much broader view of what a market is than many people do who just read the newspapers and the financial section.

And among economists, I probably have an even broader view of what's a market because I think about markets that aren't commodity markets and in which prices may not do a lot of work.

So

So it might help to first think about commodity markets, which is what most people think about when they think about markets.

And a commodity market is a market like the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade, where you can deal anonymously with the whole market because all the goods that

are named by particular securities are the same.

So all the shares of Microsoft that you might buy are the same.

All the bundles of 5,000 bushels of number two hard red winter wheat are the same.

So you don't care who you're dealing with and prices do all the work.

But in lots of markets, you

do care who you're dealing with, and prices that don't do all the work.

For instance, labor markets.

When you apply for a job, you're not applying for just any job.

You're applying for particular jobs.

And when you hire someone, you're not hiring anyone.

You're hiring a particular person.

So those are matching markets that form relationships.

And they're also markets, but prices don't do all the work.

And there are some markets where we don't let prices do any of the work, like putting children in public schools.