Itai Ashlagi Professor of Management Science and Engineering Stanford University Research interests: market design, matching, mechanism design and game theory   Email: iashlagi@stanford.edu Phone: (650) 725-8171 C.V.    Statement

Current PhD Students

Graduated Students

Postdocs

Working papers

• Priority and Externalities in Dynamic Matching, with Elaine Liu and Pengyu Qian.


• From Signaling to Interviews in Random Matching Markets, with Maxwell Allman, Amin Saberi and Sophie Yu.
• Preliminary version in STOC 2025.


• Welfare Distribution in Two-sided Random Matching Markets, with Mark Braverman and Geng Zhao.
• Preliminary version in EC 23.


• Counterbalancing Learning and Strategic Incentives in Allocation Markets, with Jamie Kang, Faidra Monachou and Moran Koren.
• Preliminary version in NeurIPS 21.


• Price Discovery in Waiting Lists: A Connection to Stochastic Gradient Descent, with Jacob Leshno, Pengyu Qian and Amin Saberi.
• Preliminary version in EC 20.

Publications

• Organ Allocation and Transplantation, with Alvin Roth, Annual Review of Economics, 2026.


• Out of Sequence Offers: Towards Efficient, Equitable Organ Allocation, with Alvin Roth, The American Journal of Bioethics, 2026.


• The Power of Two in Token Systems, with Suleyman Kerimov, Omer Tamuz and Geng Zhao, Management Science, 2026.
• MATCH-UP 2024 best paper award.


• Organ Procurement Following the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Performance Evaluations, with Hannah Bae, Kurt Sweat and Marc Melcher, JAMA Surgery, forthcoming.


• Insights From Refusal Patterns for Deceased Donor Kidney Offers, with Grace Guan, Sanjot Neelam, Joachim Studnia, Xinxing Cheng, Marc Melcher, Michael Rees, Alvin Roth and Paulo Somaini, Transplantation, 2025.


• On the Optimality of Greedy Policies in Dynamic Matching, with Suleyman Kerimov and Itai Gurvich, Operations Research, 2025.
• Preliminary version in EC 22.


• Optimal Dynamic Allocation: Simplicity through Information Design, with Faidra Monachou and Afshin Nikzad, Review of Economic Studies, 2025.
• Preliminary version in EC 21.


• Dynamic Matching: Characterizing and Achieving Constant Regret, with Suleyman Kerimov and Itai Gurvich, Management Science, 2024.


• Transplant Surgeons Already Account for Inaccuracies in the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI) Calculation, with Grace Guan and Marc Melcher, Clinical Transplantation, 2024.


• Designing a Kidney Exchange Program in Germany: Simulations and Recommendations, with Agnes Cseh, David Manlove, Axel Ockenfels and William Pettersson, Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2024.


• Early vs Single Match in the Transition to Residency: Analysis Using NRMP Data From 2014 to 2021, with Ephy Love, Jason Reminicik, and Alvin Roth, Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 2023.


• Sequential Mechanisms with Ex Post Ondividual Rationality, with Costis Daskalakis and Nima Haghpanah, Operations Research, 2023.
  • Preliminary version in EC 16.
  
  
• On Rank Dominance of Tie-Breaking Rules, with Maxwell Allman Afshin Nikzad, Theoretical Economics, 2023.


• Matching in Dynamic Imbalanced Markets, with Afshin Nikzad and Philipp Strack, Review of Economic Studies, 2023.


• Simple and Approximately Optimal Contracts for Payment for Ecosystem Services, with Wanyi Li and Irene Lo, Management Science, 2023.


• Edge-Weighted Online Windowed Matching,with Maximillien Burq, Chinmoy Dutta, Patrick Jaillet, Amin Saberi and Chris Sholley, Mathematics of Operations Research, 2023.
  • Preliminary version in EC 19.


• Assortment Planning for Two-sided Sequential Matching Markets, with Anilesh Krishnaswamyy, Rahul Makhijani, Daniela Saban, Kirankumar Shiragur, Operations Research, 2022.


• Equilibrium Allocations under Alternative Waitlist Designs: Evidence from Deceased Donor Kidneys, with Nikhil Agarwal, Michael Rees, Paulo Somaini and Daniel Waldinger, Econometrica, 2021.


• Kidney Exchange: an Operations Perspective, with Alvin Roth, Management Science, 2021.


• Assignment Mechanisms under Distributional Constraints, with Amin Saberi and Ali Shameli, Operations Research, 2020.
  • Preliminary version in SODA 19.


• Clearing Matching Markets Efficiently: Informative Signals and Match Recommendations, with Mark Braverman, Yash Kanoria and Peng Shi, Management Science, 2020.
  • Preliminary version (Communication Requirements and Informative Signaling in Matching Markets) appeared in EC 17.


• What Matters in Tie-breaking Rules? How Competition Guides Design, with Afshin Nikzad, Journal of Economic Theory, 2020.
  • Online Appendix


• Assigning More Students to Their Top Choices: A Tiebreaking Rule Comparison, with Afshin Nikzad and Assaf Romm, Games and Economic Behavior, 2020.
  • Preliminary version in EC 15.


• Market Failure in Kidney Exchange?,Appendix, with Nikhil Agarwal, Eduardo Azevedo, Clayton Featherstone and Omer Karaduman, American Economic Review, 2019.
  • See cover article here.
  • Article in Vox here.


• May the Interview Be With You: Signal Your Preferences, with Marc Melcher and Irene Wapnir, Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 2019.


• On Matching and Thickness in Heterogeneous Dynamic Market, with Maximillien Burq and Patrick Jaillet and Vahideh Manshadi, Operations Research, 2019.
  • Preliminary version in EC 16.


• Matching for Fellowship Interviews, with Marc L. Melcher and Irene Wapnir, JAMA, 2018.


• Stable Matching Mechanisms are not Obviously Strategy-proof, with Yannai Gonczarowski, Journal of Economic Theory, 2018.


• What Matters for the Productivity of Kidney Exchange, with Nikhil Agarwal, Eduardo Azevedo, Clayton Featherstone and Omer Karaduman, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2018.


• Dynamic Incentives in Wait List Mechanisms, with Nikhil Agarwal, Paulo Somaini, and Daniel Waldinger, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2018.


• The Effect of Match-run Frequencies On the Number of Transplants and Waiting Times in Kidney Exchange, with Adam Bingaman, Maximilien Burq, Vahideh Manshadi, David Gamarnik, Alvin E. Roth, Marc Melcher and Michael A. Rees, ,American Journal of Transplantation, 2018.


• Efficient Dynamic Barter Exchange, with Ross Anderson, David Gamarnik and Yash Kanoria, Operations Research, 2017.
  • Preliminary version in SODA 15.


• Unbalanced Random Matching Markets: the Stark Effect of Competition, with Yash Kanoria and Jacob D. Leshno, Journal of Political Economy, 2017. Online appendix,Slides.
• This paper suggests that any matching market is likely to have a small core. It also shows that under random preferences, being on the short side has a huge advantage. See blog posts here and here.
• Preliminary version appeared in EC 13.


• Optimal Allocation Without Money: an Engineering Approach, with Peng Shi, Management Science, 2016.
  • Preliminary version in EC 14.
  • First place: 2013 INFORMS Section on Public Programs, Services and Needs (SPPSN) best paper competition


• Finding Long Chains in Kidney Exchange Using the Traveling Salesman Problem, with Ross Anderson David Gamarnik and Alvin Roth, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015.


• Kidney Exchange and the Alliance for Paired Donation: Operations Research Changes the Way Kidneys are Transplanted, with Ross Anderson David Gamarnik, Michael rees, Alvin Roth, Tayfun Sonmez, Utku Unver, Interfaces, 2015


• Improving Community Cohesion in School Choice via Correlated-Lottery Implementation, with Peng Shi, Operations Research, 2014.


• Stability in Large Matching Markets with Complementarities, with Mark Braverman and Avinatan Hassidim, Operations Research, 2014.
  • Previously called "Matching Markets with Couples - Revisited".
  • Preliminary version appeared in the 12th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC '11).


• Free Riding and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchange, with Alvin E. Roth, Theoretical Economics, 2014.
  • Covered in TheMarker (Haaretz).
  • Preliminary version in EC 11.


• Mix and Match, with Felix Fischer, Ian A. Kash and Ariel D. Procaccia, Games and Economic Behavior, 2015.
  • Preliminary version appeared in EC 10.


• New Challenges in Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchange, with Alvin E. Roth, American Economic Review (P&P), 2012.


• Optimal Lower Bounds for Anonymous Scheduling Mechanisms, with Shahar Dobzinski and Ron Lavi, Mathematics of Operations Research, 2012.
  • Preliminary version in EC 09.
  • Winner of the outstanding paper award in EC 09.


• Nonsimultaneous Chains and Dominos in Kidney Paired Donation – Revisited, with Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees, American Journal of Transplantation, 2011.
  Covered in Nature Reviews.


• Nead Chains in Transplantation, with Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees, American Journal of Transplantation, 2011.


• Manipulability in Matching Markets: Conflict and Coincidence of Interests, with Flip Klijn, Social Choice and Welfare, 2012.


• A Noncooperative Support for Equal Division in Estate Division, with Emin Karagozoglu and Bettina Klaus, Mathematics of Social Sciences, 2012.


• Characterizing Vickrey Allocation Rules by Anonymity, with Shigehiro, Social Choice and Welfare, 2012.


• Simultaneous Ad Auctions, with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz, Mathematics of Operations Research,, 2011.


• Monotonicity and Implementability with Mark Braverman, Avinatan Hassidim and Dov Monderer, Econometrica, 2010.
  • Supplementary material


• Position Auctions with Budgets: Existence and Uniqueness with Mark Braverman, Avinatan Hassidim, Ron Lavi and Moshe Tennenholtz, B.E. journal of Theoretical Economics – Advances.


• Mediators in Position Auctions, with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz, Games and Economic Behavior, 2009.
  • Preliminary version in EC 07.


• Two-Terminal Routing Games with Unknown Active Players , with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz, Artificial Intelligence Journal, 2009.


• On the Value of Correlation, with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz, Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 2008,
  • Preliminary version appeared in UAI 05.

Papers in refereed conference proceedings (not appearing above)

• Stable Matching with Interviews, with Jiale Chen, Mohammad Roghani and Amin Saberi (ITCS 2025)


• Simple Economies are Almost Optimal, with Amir Ban, Avi Cohen, Shahar Dobzinski (EC 2021).


• Tiered Random Matching Markets: Rank is Proportional to Popularity, withMark Braverman, Amin Saberi, Clayton Thomas and Geng Zhao (ITCS 2021).


• Discrimination in Online Markets: Effects of Social Bias on Learning from Reviews and Policy Design, with Faidra Monachou (NeurIPS 2019).


• Min-cost Bipartite Perfect Matching with Delays, with Yossi Azar, Moses Charikar, Ashish Chiplunkar, Ofir Geri, Haim Kaplan, Rahul Makhijani, Yuyi Wang and Roger Wattenhofer (APPROX 17).
  • This paper is a merger of three almost identical projects.


• Learning Equilibrium in Resource Selection Games, with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz (AAAI 07).


• Robust Learning Equilibrium, with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz (UAI 06).


• Resource Selection Games with Unknown Number of Players with Dov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz (AAMAS 06).

Book chapters and other

• Market Design, In Handbook of Healthcare Analytics: Theoretical Minimum for Conducting 21st Century Research on Healthcare Operations, T. Dai and S. Tayur (Eds). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 31-50, 2018.


• 400 Kidney Paired Donor Transplants at a Single Center; The Methodist San Antonio Experience, with Adam Bingaman, Mattias Kapturczak and Cathi Murphey. American Transplant Congress, 2018.

Old Manuscripts

1. Kidney Exchange in Dynamic Sparse Heterogeneous Pools, with Patrick Jaillet and Vahideh Manshadi, Technical report.
   • Preliminary version in EC '13.


2. The Need for (Long) Chains in Kidney Exchange, with David Gamarnik, Michael A. Rees and Alvin E. Roth.
3. Ascending Unit Demand Auctions with Budget Limits, with Mark Braverman and Avinatan Hassidim, Technical report.

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Kidney Exchange Software

Sukolsak Sakshuwong and I have developed a kidney exchange platform that is adopted by several programs around the world. Open source software and algorithms for kidney exchange optimization can be found here. Instructions for how to compile can be found here.