Most of the NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference Records are from Roy Radnerâs tenure as coordinator (1961-1996). Paper records been divided into two series, Conferences and Seminars, and Administrative Files. Conferences and Seminars consists of programs, correspondence, conference papers and abstracts, notes, memos, planning documents, reports, and survey responses. Most of the documents are from the Decentralization conferences and seminars spanning the years 1971-1996; these are arranged alphabetically by conference title, and chronologically by year within each conference. The Administrative Files series includes documents more generally pertaining to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and National Science Foundation (NSF), such as correspondence, annual reports, and memoranda. This series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.
Accession 2017-0040 also includes 55 megabytes of digital records that are closed pending processing.
The Decentralization Conference-Seminars are funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and administered through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The CEME, Conferences on Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, was created to form several series of standing national seminars on various topics. Both the General Equilibrium and Decentralization conference series were formed out of the mathematical economics side of the organization. The Decentralization Conference was first coordinated by Roy Radner. The conference is traditionally held once a year, but occasionally more often. The first Decentralization Conference was held at UC Berkeley in 1971.
The term decentralization refers to the starting point of many of the problems addressed in the series: the necessary information starts in a decentralized state. Much of the conference series has focused on questions of design and of various systems for production and allocation of goods, services, and information. These range from understanding voting systems to markets to the organization of the internal lines of communication and assignment of tasks within a firm. Topics covered at past conferences include: mechanism and market design, recourse allocation, matching, team theory, contracting, organization of the firm, communication, computation, and processing of information. Currently, the Decentralization conference series includes the design of any institutions, contracts, organizations, or relationships in which information and/or incentives play a role.
