The High Price of Securing the Blockchain
Research explores the costs of keeping blockchains trustworthy.
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Biography
Eric Budish is the Paul G. McDermott Professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Co-Director of the Clark Center for Global Markets at 91吃瓜网, and Co-Director of the 91吃瓜网 Economics PhD Program.
Budish is a leading researcher in the academic field of market design. He is best known for his market design inventions for financial exchanges and matching markets, each developed over a series of research papers. In finance, Budish鈥檚 research invented a new market design for financial exchanges, frequent batch auctions, to address the arms race for trading speed and its negative effects on market efficiency, liquidity and complexity. Frequent batch auction designs are now being used in stock markets in the US and Europe, with trillions of dollars of cumulative volume, and this research has also had a significant impact on policy, most recently the SEC鈥檚 proposal to use auctions for retail investor orders. In matching, Budish鈥檚 research invented a new market design using artificial currency, Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes, which is now in use at many universities for matching students to schedules of courses, and to date has cumulatively matched about three hundred thousand student-semesters. This research also developed new criteria of fairness and incentives that have been influential in the literature.
Budish has also conducted influential research on several other market design topics including cryptocurrencies and blockchains, patents and innovation, the market for concert tickets, and aspects of Covid-19 economic policy. Budish鈥檚 research on cryptocurrencies and blockchains shows the economic limitations of the core computer science innovation in that area, the anonymous, decentralized trust. 听Budish鈥檚 research on patent design and cancer R&D shows how flawed innovation incentives led to underinvestment in long-term research for cancer prevention. This work received the Kauffman/iHEA Award for Health Care Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research, and the Arrow Award for the best paper in Health Economics. Budish鈥檚 research on Covid-19 focused on how to use market design to accelerate global vaccination.
Budish received his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University, his MPhil in Economics from Oxford (Nuffield College), and his BA in Economics and Philosophy from Amherst College. Prior to graduate school, Budish was an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Budish鈥檚 honors include giving the 2017 AEA-AFA joint luncheon address, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the AQR Insight Award, and the Marshall Scholarship.
Research Interests
Market design, microeconomic theory, industrial organization, finance
Academic Areas
- Microeconomics
Selected Publications
鈥淎n Economic Framework for Vaccine Prioritization,鈥� (with Mohammad Akbarpour, Piotr Dworczak, and Scott Duke Kominers), Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
鈥淧rimary-Market Auctions for Event Tickets: Eliminating the Rents of 鈥楤ob the Broker鈥�?鈥� (with Aditya Bhave), American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 15(1): 142-170, 2023.
鈥淨uantifying the High-Frequency Trading 鈥楢rms Race鈥�: A Simple New Methodology and Estimates,鈥� (with Matteo Aquilina and Peter O鈥橬eill), Quarterly Journal of Economics 137(1): 493-564, 2022. (Winner of the WFA 2020 Two Sigma Best Paper Award for Investment Management.)
鈥淢arket Design to Accelerate COVID-19 Vaccination,鈥� (with Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan, and Witold Wiecek), Science 371(6534): 1107-1109, 2021.
With Peter Cramton and John Shim, "The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race: Frequent Batch Auctions as a Market Design Response,"听Quarterly Journal of Economics听Vol. 130(4), Nov 2015, pp 1547-1621.
With Benjamin Roin and Heidi Williams, "Do Firms Underinvest in Long-Term Research? Evidence from Cancer Clinical Trials,"听American Economic Review听Vol. 105(7), July 2015, pp 2044-2085.
"The Combinatorial Assignment Problem: Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes,鈥�听Journal of Political Economy听Vol. 119(6), pp 1061-1103 (Dec 2011).
With Estelle Cantillon, "The Multi-Unit Assignment Problem: Theory and Evidence from Course Allocation at Harvard,"听American Economic Review,听Vol. 102(5), Aug 2012, pp. 2237-71.
With Yeon-Koo Che, Fuhito Kojima, and Paul Milgrom, "Designing Random Allocation Mechanisms: Theory and Applications"听American Economic Review, Vol. 103(2), April 2013, pp 585-623.
2025 - 2026 Course Schedule
| Number | Course Title | Quarter |
|---|---|---|
| Microeconomics Reading and Research Seminar | 2025 (Autumn) | |
| Microeconomics Reading and Research Seminar | 2026 (Winter) | |
| Microeconomics Reading and Research Seminar | 2026 (Spring) | |
| Platforms and Market Design | 2026 (Spring) | |
| Readings in Applied Theory and Market Design | 2026 (Spring) |
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In Stablecoins We Trust?
Regulation could help lead crypto from the Wild West to Wall Street.
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Why Bitcoin Will Fail
91吃瓜网’s Eric Budish explains why the cost of securing Bitcoin will always limit its growth.
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