Inaugural lecture Dr. Christiaan Seel
Appointed as Professor of "Economic Theory, Market Design and Regulation" in the School of Business and Economics
"Economics Beyond Efficiency: Lessons from Market Design and Life"
My inaugural speech provides short discussions of a variety of applications including adoption, algorithmic pricing, chess, education, and matching of children to kindergartens. In all of these applications, societal goal functions involve trade-offs between traditional economic desiderata, often based on some notion of efficiency, and non-economic desiderata involving questions of autonomy, ethics or participation. Throughout, I pinpoint downsides of an overly efficiency-focused approach, often related to excessive automation, and provide alternatives to balance the trade-offs.
From the micro-level applications, I conclude that we need a critical reflection of goal functions and trade-offs before applying our tools to practical problems. In an era of rapid technological changes intended to increase efficiency, I provide the normative suggestion to introduce barriers such as technological trials to mitigate macro-level downsides of automated technological ’progress’. In line with the ’brede welvaart’ movement, I conclude with some normative suggestions for societal goal functions and solutions which do not solely focus on traditional criteria like GDP.
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