Publications of the Research Unit Market Design

  1. Refereed Journal // forthcoming

    Asylum Assignment and Burden-Sharing

    We analyze the problem of matching asylum seekers to member states, incorporating wait times, preferences of asylum seekers, and the priorities, capacities, and burden-sharing commitments of member states. We…

  2. Refereed Journal // 2026

    A Small Volume Reduction that Melts Down the Market: Auctions with Endogenous Rationing

    Auctions with endogenous rationing are motivated by the regulatory requirement of so-called proportionality of public support and are used to allocate support for renewable energy. They reduce the auctioned…

  3. #ZEWPodcast // 2026

    How Are School Placements Assigned?

    How equitable are educational pathways, and what are the consequences of early tracking of students? ZEW economist Thilo Klein from the “Market Design” research department and economist Sarah McNamara from the…

  4. Refereed Journal // 2026

    Booster draft mechanisms for multi-object assignment

    We describe a new class of mechanisms—referred to as booster draft mechanisms—for allocating indivisible objects among n individuals with responsive preferences. Specifically, n individuals are assigned m

  5. Refereed Journal // 2026

    Congestion Management Games in Electricity Markets

    This paper proposes a game-theoretic model to analyze the strategic behavior of inc-dec gaming in market-based congestion management (redispatch). We extend existing models by considering incomplete information…

  6. ZEW policy brief No. 25-10 // 2025

    Rethinking Tracking: Lessons from Hungary for German Education Reform

    Educational tracking – separating students into different classes, tracks, or schools based on ability – is relatively commonplace worldwide, despite mixed evidence concerning how it affects student outcomes.…

  7. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-072 // 2025

    When Money Shouldn’t Buy

    Banning money in markets for goods like education or health is a common policy to prevent unfair access by the wealthy. We investigate whether this policy is well-targeted for its intended goal. For this, we…