Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A Nobel laureate reveals the often surprising rules that govern a vast array of activities--both mundane and life-changing--in which money may play little or no role.

If you've ever sought a job or hired someone, applied to college or guided your child into a good kindergarten, asked someone out on a date or been asked out, you've participated in a kind of market. Most of the study of economics deals with commodity markets, where the price of a good connects sellers and buyers. But what about other kinds of "goods," like a spot in the Yale freshman class or a position at Google? This is the territory of matching markets, where "sellers" and "buyers" must choose each other, and price isn't the only factor determining who gets what.

Alvin E. Roth is one of the world's leading experts on matching markets. He has even designed several of them, including the exchange that places medical students in residencies and the system that increases the number of kidney transplants by better matching donors to patients. In Who Gets What--And Why , Roth reveals the matching markets hidden around us and shows how to recognize a good match and make smarter, more confident decisions.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Roth reveals some of the secrets of market design, focusing on sites of exchange where money is not the core issue, such as who gets their children into the best kindergartens and how young doctors are matched to their first-choice residency program. Voice actor Berkrot brings a good deal of enthusiasm to reading Roth's accounts of how economic theories work in practice. His somewhat gravelly voice is well-suited to the age of the author, who is now in his 60s and recounts his economic theory via chatty first-person narration. Berkrot uses a New England accent ("the MAH-ket foah OH-gan donahs") that is colorful but not out of place, since several of the book's on-the-ground examples come from the Boston area (Boston Public Schools, the New England Program for Kidney Exchange). In all, it's a competent performance from a veteran narrator. A HMH/Dolan hardcover. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.