Murat Sertel
Remembering Murat R. Sertel: Pioneer in Economic Design
We commemorate Professor Murat R. Sertel's profound influence as a founder of the economic design field and our center. His ingenious theoretical models, novel analytical techniques, and organizational leadership played an indispensable role in coalescing our intellectual community.
At the core of Professor Sertel's scholarship lies the view that economic institutions determine allocations but remain amendable to purposeful reform. Much of his research tackled the task of designing optimal rules and mechanisms for collective decision-making given constraints around technology, preferences, and ethical considerations.
Professor Sertel made seminal contributions spanning topics like general equilibrium theory, game theory, social choice, and mechanism design. Some of his key works focused on:
- Non-cooperative equilibria in social systems
- Incentive compatible mechanisms for principal-agent problems
- Path independence in choice theory
- Pretend-but-perform regulatory mechanisms
- Manipulation via pre-donations
- Design of voting rules and electoral systems
- Modeling alternative property rights regimes
His research introduced novel concepts like workers' enterprises, feasibility dynamics, routes in choice theory, games of pretension, and the notion of a Rechtsstaat.
Beyond his academic work, Professor Sertel spearheaded initiatives to instutionalize the field of economic design. His intellectual creativity, rigorous scholarship, and organizational leadership played a pivotal role in coalescing the community advancing a design-focused approach to economics. His organizing efforts built academic units and conferences that institutionalized economic design as a field. Among his many achievements was founding the academic journal Review of Economic Design and leading it as editor-in-chief. This furthered the economic design field he helped establish. We honor this legacy through continued scholarship in the tradition he pioneered by fusing ethics, science, and creativity.
Professor Sertel was a dedicated teacher and mentor who inspired students to think critically about economic institutions and their ethical underpinnings. His incisive thinking and warm personality made him an influential figure both in Turkey and internationally.
We celebrate his groundbreaking work elucidating what makes institutions succeed and envisioning alternatives. 20 years after his passing, Professor Sertel's pioneering vision catalyzing the quest to craft “economic constitutions” remains an inspiration for generations of scholars.
