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Technology’s Influence on Matching Markets

https://qz.com/421547/nobel-prize-winner-alvin-roth-explains-the-hidden-economics-behind-tinder-marriage-and-college-admissions/

Matching Markets are a very relevant topic we covered in class.  It essentially boils down to having two groups: the producers and the consumers.  The examples mentioned in class featured students enrolling in classes, organ donations, and even tinder.  These matching markets have been around forever but I am choosing to focus on the influence of advancing technology creating new matching markets where they weren’t before.  Even in my lifetime the technology I have interacted with has drastically changed the way I live my life.

The fact that almost every single person has a smartphone and can interact with the internet/apps at any point allows much easier creation of networks.  This can be seen in many different apps, such as Uber, Lyft, Tinder, and AirBnb.  Everything is connected to the internet and those directly correspond to many of the ideas we learn in this class.  Alvin Roth, a Standford University professor who received a Nobel Prize in 2012, talks about how most people call Uber, Lyft, etc “companies” but he prefers to call them “marketplaces”.  This is because that is exactly what they are.  The two groups are split between the users and the product (the drivers, the houses you’re renting, even other people in Tinder’s case).  Without every person being connected online none of these marketplaces would exist.  Professor Roth discusses an example of how speed dating was a pre-internet solution to finding a significant other.  The ease of downloading a dating app and instantly being connected with other people blows the other idea out of the water.  We are taking this class at a very exciting time, as I believe these matching markets are going to keep getting more and more widespread as people creatively leverage new ideas and technology.

 

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