Economic Systems Design

Economic Systems Design (ESD) is a unique program offered by ICES. The main focus of ESD is the design, development, testing and implementation of exchange systems, including such applications as:

• auctions to allocate public resources (e.g., FCC spectra)
• network markets (e.g., electric power, natural gas, and water)
• scheduling systems (e.g., scientific observations in space missions)
• price patterns and overreaction in financial markets, and
• distributed software agents for computational market systems.

ESD utilizes experimental methods in economics as a way to testbed new exchange systems. More specifically we use "smart" (computer-assisted) markets to develop computerized systems and algorithms that allow participants to execute complex trades, subject to feasibility constraints.