The Economic Architecture of Cooperation

Abstract Many social and economic problems arise because individual incentives pull against the common good. Drawing on examples from our own and others' research—market failure, organ shortages, and climate change, among others—this lecture examines why cooperation so often breaks down. It then shows how modern economic instruments can design targeted incentive and decision-making structures that foster cooperative behaviour and, in doing so, open up new paths to solving these problems. Biograp