The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Optimal Transport in Economics

Alfred Galichon (1, 2)

1 NYU - NYU System
2 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)

Optimal transport has become part of the standard quantitative economics toolbox. It is the framework of choice to describe models of matching with transfers, but beyond that, it allows to: extend quantile regression; identify discrete choice models; provide new algorithms for computing the random coefficient logit model; and generalize the gravity model in trade. This paper offer a brief review of the basics of the theory, its applications to economics, and some extensions.

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Economics and Finance

Alfred Galichon. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Optimal Transport in Economics. 2021. ⟨hal-03936221⟩