The collection offers a wealth of information from Roth's early career at the University of Pittsburgh, including his research and correspondence from that period, as well as drafts of some of his well-cited articles and writings. Approximately one-half of the material lies in the Correspondence and Working Papers series. This portion of the collection, arranged alphabetically by correspondent, includes professional correspondence as well as many drafts of scholarly articles. This arrangement replicates Roth's original filing system, which offers insight into his correspondence style and methodology for economics collaboration. Notable correspondents include Roy Weintraub, Robert Aumann, Ido Erev, Uriel Rothblum, and many more. Also included are various subject files, including Winner's Curse, Matching, and Learning.
Another notable component of the collection is Roth's Writings and Research, which includes both working drafts of Roth's own as well as data printouts and other components of his work in game theory and its real-world applications. These files have been grouped by article and are loosely arranged by date. Each article's co-writers or collaborators are noted if known.
The Writings by Others series has some overlap with the Correspondence and Working Drafts series, but for the most part the former includes only the article from Roth's fellow economists, without the collaborative or feedback aspect present in the latter series.
Roth's Teaching and Coursework series includes lecture notes as well as tools such as transparencies used during his economics lectures. Roth's own coursework at Stanford is also present, including notes, exams, syllabi, and lectures on topics such as microeconomics, competitive strategies, game theory, and choice theory.
Finally, the Grant Materials series is arranged by grant application, with each file including application materials, correspondence, reports, and finances relating to the grant.
Alvin Roth was born on Dec. 18, 1951. He graduated from Columbia University in 1971, and earned a masters (1973) and Ph.D. (1974) from Stanford University in operations research. Roth went on to teach economics and business administration at the University of Illinois from 1974-1982, and at the University of Pittsburgh from 1982-1998. In 1998, he became full faculty at Harvard University, and remains there today.
Roth's work focuses on game theory, market design, and experimental economics. He has worked on a variety of real-world projects, including the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) system, responsible for matching medical residents with respective programs; the New York City and Boston public school systems' high school assignment selection methods; and the New England Program for kidney exchanges between incompatible partners. He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1983-1984), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (1984-1986), and a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has won the Texas Instruments' Foundation Founders' Prize (1980) and the Operations Research Society of America's Lanchester Prize (1991). In 2012, he and Lloyd Shapley won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Honor of Alfred Nobel (commonly known as the Nobel Prize) for their work in "the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design." He has also authored numerous books and over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles.
