The Coordination Paradigm

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Richard Holden

Professor Richard Holden will be giving Trevor Swan Lecture at the 2022 SAET Conference.

Wednesday 20 July, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm AEST

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About this event

Increasing returns to scale arise in many situations including in R&D, in environments subject to technological change, or with learning-by-doing. These increasing returns can lead to multiple equilibria. If inputs are centralized this presents no problem. But if inputs are decentralized then increasing returns lead to a coordination problem. In recent years a literature has emerged that studies how such coordination problems can be solved—for instance by a central network player, through “block capital”, or by organization design. Solving these coordination problems is a pervasive issue in practice—especially in the “new economy”—and it presents new and interesting challenges for economists studying these environments.

About our presenter - Professor Richard Holden

Richard Holden is professor of economics at UNSW Business School, and President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He received a PhD from Harvard University and was a faculty member at MIT and the University of Chicago before returning to Australia.

He has published in leading economics journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Review of Economic Studies. His popular writings have appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, Australian Financial Review, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald. He is currently a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review.

He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, and of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.