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Economics Department Faculty

William L. Thomson

Professor of Economics
Phone: (585) 275-2236
Email: wth2 at troi.cc.rochester.edu

Ph.D. Stanford, 1976

My CV is available in in pdf

Link to the research page of Prof. Thomson

Research Interests: Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Theory of Equity

Selected Papers and Publications:

• "The fair division of a fixed supply among a growing population," Mathematics of Operations Research, 8 (1983), 319-326.
• "A study of choice correspondences in economies with a variable number of agents," Journal of Economic Theory, 46 (1988), 237-254.
• Axiomatic Theory of Bargaining With a Variable Population (with T.Lensberg), Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• "Can everyone benefit from growth? Two difficulties" (with H. Moulin), Journal of Mathematical Economics (1988), 339-345.
• "No-envy and consistency in economies with indivisible goods" (with K. Tadenuma), Econometrica, 59 (1991) 1755-1767.
• "Population-monotonic solutions to the problem of fair division when preferences are single­peaked," Economic Theory, 5 (1995), 229-246.
• A Guide for the Young Economist, M.I.T. Press, 2001.
  Book consisting of three pedagogical essays entitled:
  1. "Writing papers"
  2. "Giving talks"
  3. "Writing referee reports"

Forthcoming Publications and Recent papers:

• "Fair Allocation Rules", Rochester Center for Economic Research Working Paper, last revised December 2007.
  
  Available in PDF format.



• "Lorenz rankings of rules for the adjudication of conflicting claims", Rochester Center for Economic Research Working Paper, last revised December 2007.
  
  Abstract For the problem of adjudicating conflicting claims, we offer simple criteria to compare rules on the basis of the Lorenz order. These criteria pertain to three families of rules. The first family contains the constrained equal awards, constrained equal losses, Talmud, and minimal overlap rules (Thomson, 2007a). The second family, which also contains the constrained equal awards and constrained equal losses rules, is obtained from the first one by exchanging, for each problem, how well agents with relatively larger claims are treated as compared to agents with relatively smaller claims. The third family consists of consistent rules (Young, 1987). We also address the issue whether certain operators on the space of rules preserve the Lorenz order.
  Available in PDF format.



• "Cost allocation and airport problems", Rochester Center for Economic Research Working Paper, last revised December 2007.
  
  Abstract We consider the problem of dividing the cost of a facility when agents can be ordered in terms of the need they have for it, and accommodating an agent with a certain need allows accommodating all agents with lower needs at no extra cost. This problem is known as the "airport problem", the facility being the runway. We review the literature devoted to its study, and formulate a number of open questions.
  Available in PDF format.



• "On properties of division rules lifted by bilateral consistency", (with Toru Hokari), Rochester Center for Economic Research Working Paper, last revised December 2007.
  
  Abstract We consider the problem of adjudicating conflicting claims in the context of a variable population. A property of rules is "lifted" if whenever a rule satisfies it in the two-claimant case, and the rule is bilaterally consistent, it satis¯es it for any number of claimants. We identify a number of properties that are lifted, such as equal treatment of equals, resource monotonicity, composition down and composition up, and show that continuity, anonymity and self-duality are not lifted. However, each of these three properties is lifted if the rule is resource monotonic.
  Available in PDF format.



• "Two families of rules for the adjudication of conflicting claims", Rochester Center for Economic Research Working Paper, last revised December 2007.
  
  Abstract We consider the problem of dividing the cost of a facility when agents can be ordered in terms of the need they have for it, and accommodating an agent with a certain need allows accommodating all agents with lower needs at no extra cost. This problem is known as the "airport problem", the facility being the runway. We review the literature devoted to its study, and formulate a number of open questions.
  Available in PDF format.