A pioneer in the field of market design, Harvard Business School professor Alvin E. Roth has helped to repair flawed market systems in fields ranging from kidney donation to high-school student placement. Key concepts include:
* Successful marketplaces must be "thick, uncongested, and safe."
* Sufficient "thickness" means there are enough participants in the market to make it thrive.
* "Congestion" is what can happen when markets get too thick too fast: there are heaps of potential players, but not enough time for transactions to be made, accepted, or rejected effectively.
* "Safety" refers to an environment in which all parties feel secure enough to make decisions based on their best interests, rather than attempts to game a flawed system.

Millions of people participate in online auctions everyday-numbers that are enticing more and more academics to investigate what auctions can tell us about economics, human behavior, and the way we make business decisions.

Harvard Business School professors Alvin E. Roth and Deepak Malhotra have each independently looked at auction behavior and derive some advice for business people who daily bid for everything from chips to consultants.

Roth looks at the practice of late bidding and how the rules of an auction affect the outcome. Malhotra explores the dynamics of "auction fever."