John Hatfield

Stanford University
Assistant Professor of Political Economy

John William Hatfield is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His primary work is in the area of market design, investigating how specific details of market structure determine outcomes and strategic incentives. For instance, his work on the strategic characteristics of allocation mechanisms with binary preferences showed that the pairwise exchange of kidneys for donation designed by Alvin Roth, Tayfun Sonmez, and Utku Unver could be expanded to include three-way exchanges and other considerations while preserving truthful revelation as a dominant strategy. This significantly enhances the number of kidney donations that can take place, and such exchanges are currently implemented by the New England Program for Kidney Exchange. He has also investigated the "market for corporate control", looking at how takeover defenses change outcomes and strategies in this market. This work, with coauthor Jordan Barry, shows that poison pills will be and effective staggered boards may be in the best interests of shareholders, contrary to much of the prior work in this area. John also works on decentralization, detailing the economic benefits and costs of the decentralization of political power. Most prominently, his work with Gerard Padro i Miquel shows that decentralization is likely to enhance economic growth through greater capital formation. Recently, he has brought this theoretical work to data, working with Katrina Kosec to show that American cities with greater interjurisdictional competition have higher wages and wage growth. John received his PhD in economics from Stanford's department of economics in 2005, after graduating from Caltech (with honors), obtaining a BS in mathematics and physics. While at Caltech, he did research in both applied physics and dynamical systems before discovering his zeal for economics.

Working Group

Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy (MIP)

Additional Information

Email: john.hatfield@gmail.com
Homepage: http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultyprofiles/biomain.asp?id=04801205