Welcome Assistant Teaching Professor, Aram Grigoryan

Aram Grigoryan joined the Department of Economics in July 2022, after receiving his PhD in Economics from Duke University. Prior to attending Duke University, he attended the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University where he received his MA in Economics in 2015. His primary interests are market design, matching theory, and game theory.

Aram’s research studies efficient and equitable mechanisms for allocating scarce resources. In one ongoing project, he considers how to optimally design the application process for school choice programs under the realistic extension that allows families to indirectly choose public schools for their child by first choosing where to live within the district. Handling two markets – a housing and a school market – at the same time within a matching model is technically challenging. Among the interesting results is that allocation mechanisms that give preferences to those living near schools allow the intensity of preferences for specific schools to be revealed, which would not otherwise be captured by their rankings of schooling alternatives in their applications. Other work studies the tension between efficiency and distributional goals, such as prioritizing students from underrepresented groups.

Aram adds to the microeconomic theory group here at UCSD Economics. He will teach in our existing undergraduate intermediate microeconomics sequence, and also plans to develop an elective on market design.