Matt Van Essen

Matt Van Essen
Assistant Professor of Economics
Economics, Finance & Legal Studies
Office: 222 Alston Hall, 205-348-2912
Specialty Areas:

Public Economics, Game Theory, Bargaining, and Experimental Economics.

Education:

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (B.A.), University of Arizona (M.A.), University of Arizona (Ph.D.).

Honors, Achievements and Affiliations:

Dr. Van Essen is an economist with a research agenda that focuses on topics in public economics, bargaining, and game theory. Dr. Van Essen’s work in public economics focuses on the incentive problems in the provision of public goods as well as methods to mitigate these problems. He is a member of the Economic Science Association, the Society for Economic Design, the Southern Economic Association, and has published in the journals Economic Inquiry, Social Choice and Welfare, Games and Economic Behavior, Review of Economic Design, Southern Economic Journal, and the Journal of Public Economic Theory.

Selected Publications

  • “Hold-up: With a Vengeance.” (With Martin Dufwenberg and Alec Smith.) Economic Inquiry.  Forthcoming.
  • "A Clarke Tax Tatonnement that Converges to the Lindahl Allocation." Working Paper.
  • “Out-of-Equilibrium Performance of Three Lindahl Mechanisms.” (With Mark Walker and Natalia Lazzati.)  Games and Economic Behavior.  Forthcoming.
  • “A Simple Supermodular Mechanism that Implements Lindahl Allocations.” Journal of Public Economic Theory.  Forthcoming.
  • “A Note on the Stability of Chen’s Lindahl Mechanism.”  Social Choice and Welfare.  Forthcoming.
  • “Information Complexity, Punishment, and Stability in Two Nash Efficient Lindahl Mechanisms.” Review of Economic Design. Forthcoming.
  • “Regulating Anti-Commons: Insights from Public Expenditure Theory.” Working Paper.
  • “Making Efficient Public Good Decisions Using an Augmented Ausubel Auction.” Forthcoming at SAET Bulletin.
  • “Blind-Stealing: Experience and Expertise in a Mixed Strategy Poker Experiment.” (With John Wooders.) Working Paper.
  • “Cournot Oligopoly and the Theory of Public Goods.”  Working Paper.
  • “Bartering Games in the Kolm Triangle.”  Working Paper.

  • “Tacit Collusion in Price Setting Oligopoly:  A Puzzle Redux.”  (With William B. Hankins.)  Southern Economic Journal. Forthcoming.