Georg Nöldeke

Professor of Economics, University of Basel

Georg Nöldeke

I am a professor of economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Basel. I am also a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Game Theory Society, and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.

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Portrait of Georg Nöldeke

Research

My research focuses on microeconomic theory, game theory, and social evolution. My recent work on matching studies how search frictions, investment incentives, and balance conditions shape competitive matching outcomes. A second strand of my research uses game-theoretic tools to study cooperation and collective action in groups, including models motivated by social and biological evolution.

My current SNSF-funded project, Prematch Investment with Stochastic Returns, undertaken with Antoine Jacquet, Larry Samuelson, and Cédric Wasser, builds on my work in matching theory by studying how uncertainty about returns shapes agents’ prior investment choices.

Publications

Handbook Chapters

  • Matching with Frictions with Stephan Lauermann. In Handbook of the Economics of Matching, Vol. 2, Ch. 7, 579-642, 2025.
    Idea
    What becomes of the stable-matching benchmark when potential partners meet randomly and waiting is costly? The chapter develops a common framework for studying decentralized marriage markets. It explains how search behavior, risk preferences, and the endogenous availability of partners shape sorting. It also asks when market outcomes approach stability as frictions vanish.
  • Investment and Competitive Matching with Larry Samuelson. In Handbook of the Economics of Matching, Vol. 1, Ch. 4, 125-222, 2024.
    Idea
    Many matching markets require people to invest before they know whom they will match with, making investment incentives inseparable from the assignment process. The chapter develops a unified framework for this interaction. It shows why competitive matching can support efficient outcomes, but also why sunk investments can generate coordination failures.

Publications in Refereed Journals

  • The Shirker's Dilemma and the Prospect of Cooperation in Large Groups with Aviad Heifetz and Jorge Peña. Theoretical Population Biology 155, 10-23, 2024.
    Idea
    In the shirker’s dilemma, collective action succeeds provided that no more than a fixed number of group members shirk, reversing the usual requirement that a minimum number must volunteer. Larger groups can then sustain a higher proportion of cooperators. Yet they also lower payoffs and shrink the cooperative equilibrium’s basin of attraction.
  • Cooperative Dilemmas with Binary Actions and Multiple Players with Jorge Peña. Dynamic Games and Applications 13, 1156-1193, 2023.
    Idea
    Familiar labels such as prisoner’s dilemma, snowdrift game, and stag hunt become ambiguous beyond two-player games. The paper resolves this ambiguity by defining multiplayer versions of all three games. It also gives a general definition of cooperative dilemmas, based on cooperation’s positive externalities and the conflict between equilibrium and social optimality. Such dilemmas always have inefficient equilibria with too little cooperation, but none with too much.
  • Sorting in Iterated Incumbency Contests with Samuel Häfner. Economic Theory 74, 1103-1140, 2022.
    Idea
    People who value incumbency more have stronger incentives to obtain and defend it. But does that make them overrepresented among incumbents? The paper embeds repeated contests in a population flow where defeated incumbents return as challengers. It identifies when positive sorting arises and how contest frequency affects its strength.
  • Group Size and Collective Action in a Binary Contribution Game with Jorge Peña. Journal of Mathematical Economics 88, 42-51, 2020.
    Idea
    Does adding potential contributors help a group provide a public good when a fixed number of costly contributions is required? More members can help meet the threshold, but may weaken each individual’s incentive to contribute. The paper isolates this tension in a model of identical group members. It shows that provision becomes less likely with group size, even in the best symmetric equilibrium.
  • The Balance Condition in Search-and-Matching Models with Stephan Lauermann and Thomas Tröger. Econometrica 88:2, 595-618, 2020.
    Idea
    A steady-state matching model combines a strategic question—who accepts whom—with an accounting question—whether the flows into and out of every unmatched pool balance. Isolating the second question reveals that existence, uniqueness, and comparative statics results established for quadratic search technologies extend to any search technology satisfying minimal regularity conditions.
  • The Evolution of Egg Trading in Simultaneous Hermaphrodites with Jorge Peña and Oscar Puebla. American Naturalist 195:3, 524-533, 2020.
    Idea
    For simultaneous hermaphrodites, mating poses a dilemma: who takes the costly female role? Egg traders solve it by taking turns, but the exchange is vulnerable to cheaters who take without reciprocating. The paper asks how trading can invade a population of unconditional providers and withstand cheaters. Its model explains why this requires intermediate encounter rates, costly egg production, and an ability to detect cheating.
  • Group Size Effects in Social Evolution with Jorge Peña. Journal of Theoretical Biology 457, 211-220, 2018.
    Idea
    How group size affects the evolution of cooperation is a classic question across the behavioral sciences. Predictions, however, often depend on the particular model of social interaction. This paper develops a general framework for comparing such models and identifying when their group-size predictions are robust.
  • The Implementation Duality with Larry Samuelson. Econometrica 86:4, 1283-1324, 2018.
    Idea
    Stable matching and adverse-selection models seem different, but with transferable utility they share a mathematical structure based on duality. That structure breaks down once utility is not quasilinear. The paper uses a Galois connection to recover much of it and extend familiar insights to models with imperfectly transferable utility. In the mathematical literature, this framework has become a reference point for the emerging theory of equilibrium transport.
  • Optimal Search from Multiple Distributions with Infinite Horizon with Jean-Michel Benkert and Igor Letina. Economics Letters 164, 15-18, 2018.
    Idea
    The paper studies an infinite-horizon searcher who chooses which of several distributions to sample and when to stop. The optimal rule is to select a distribution with the highest reservation value, sample it every period, and stop once a draw exceeds the reservation value.
  • Payoff Shares in Two-player Contests with Samuel Häfner. Games 7:3, 25, 2016.
    Idea
    Contest models are usually solved from technological parameters to equilibrium payoffs. This paper runs that mapping in reverse. Any feasible division into two positive payoff shares and a dissipated share can be generated by a unique asymmetric Tullock contest. The contest can therefore be summarized by its induced sharing rule.
  • The Symmetric Equilibria of Symmetric Voter Participation Games with Complete Information with Jorge Peña. Games and Economic Behavior 99, 71-81, 2016.
    Idea
    In a classic model of costly voting, Palfrey and Rosenthal used numerical evidence to conjecture how many symmetric turnout equilibria exist and how they behave as the electorate grows. For more than three decades, that characterization remained unproved. This paper supplies the missing proof. It does so by expressing each voter’s probability of being pivotal as a Bernstein polynomial.
  • Variability in Group Size and the Evolution of Collective Action with Jorge Peña. Journal of Theoretical Biology 389, 72-82, 2016.
    Idea
    Group-size variability can promote or inhibit cooperation. The paper identifies payoff structures under which greater variability favors cooperation and others under which it hinders cooperation.
  • Evolutionary Dynamics of Collective Action in Spatially Structured Populations with Laurent Lehmann and Jorge Peña. Journal of Theoretical Biology 382, 122-136, 2015.
    Idea
    Relatedness normally complicates multiplayer games in spatially structured populations. The paper represents such multiplayer games as transformed games in a well-mixed population, with spatial structure captured by a single relatedness coefficient. Applied to collective action, this approach shows how relatedness interacts with economies of scale for public, club, and charity goods.
  • Investment and Competitive Matching with Larry Samuelson. Econometrica 83:3, 835-896, 2015.
    Idea
    If competitive matching eliminates bargaining-power distortions, will agents invest efficiently before choosing partners? The paper shows that an efficient equilibrium always exists. Yet sunk investments can also sustain equilibria in which agents fail to coordinate on mutually beneficial investments and matches.
  • Existence of Steady-State Equilibria in Matching Models with Search Frictions with Stephan Lauermann. Economics Letters 131, 1-4, 2015.
    Idea
    Previous proofs that steady-state equilibria exist in matching models with search frictions required either a unique steady-state population of unmatched agents or unique payoffs in an auxiliary bargaining problem. The paper’s fixed-point argument drops both requirements. It accommodates general meeting technologies and both transferable and nontransferable utility.
  • Stable Marriages and Search Frictions with Stephan Lauermann. Journal of Economic Theory 151, 163-195, 2014.
    Idea
    Stability is often used to predict outcomes in decentralized marriage markets on the intuition that blocking pairs will find one another when search is easy. Embedding the marriage problem in a random-meeting market shows that vanishing frictions justify this intuition exactly when the stable matching is unique. With multiple stable matchings, forward-looking search incentives can sustain inefficient unstable outcomes.
  • Gains from Switching and Evolutionary Stability in Multi-player Matrix Games with Laurent Lehmann and Jorge Peña. Journal of Theoretical Biology 346, 23-33, 2014.
    Idea
    Multiplayer evolutionary games appear difficult to analyze because the selection gradient is a high-degree polynomial. Writing the polynomial in Bernstein form shows how its roots and shape relate to the much simpler sequence of gains from switching strategies. Sign changes in these gains yield information about the number and stability of evolutionary equilibria.
  • Does Competitive Pricing Cause Market Breakdown under Extreme Adverse Selection? with George Mailath. Journal of Economic Theory 140:1, 97-125, 2008.
    Idea
    Can competitive pricing itself cause a market to collapse when adverse selection is so severe that, at every price, market makers would lose money trading with informed traders? The paper separates genuine non-viability from a failure of fully revealing prices. It shows that whenever any trading arrangement can break even, trade can also be sustained under competitive pricing, possibly with pooling.
  • Optimal Bunching without Optimal Control with Larry Samuelson. Journal of Economic Theory 134:1, 405-420, 2007.
    Idea
    In adverse-selection problems, an optimal contract may assign the same decision to a range of types. Characterizing this bunching usually calls for optimal control. Reversing the map—from assigning decisions to types rather than types to decisions—turns a broad class of such problems into pointwise maximization and makes bunches appear as jumps in the optimal assignment.
  • A Characterization of the Distributions that imply Existence of Linear Equilibria in the Kyle Model with Thomas Tröger. Annals of Finance 2:1, 73-85, 2006.
    Idea
    This paper extends the characterization in Existence of Linear Equilibria in the Kyle Model with Multiple Informed Traders by allowing dependence between asset payoffs and noise trading. It shows that the existence of linear equilibria for every number of informed traders requires the joint distribution of these variables to be elliptical, provided that distribution is determined by its moments.
  • Information-based Relative Consumption Effects: Correction with Larry Samuelson. Econometrica 73:4, 1383-1387, 2005.
    Idea
    This paper corrects a mistake in Larry Samuelson’s Information-Based Relative Consumption Effects and shows that the original paper’s main message remains intact.
  • Strategic Choice Handicaps when Females seek High Male Net Viability with Larry Samuelson. Journal of Theoretical Biology 221, 53-59, 2003.
    Idea
    A handicap can reveal male quality only if its cost does not erase the advantage females seek. When females care about net viability, deterring imitation may require high-quality males to signal so wastefully that their net viability falls below that of lower-quality males, causing females to reject them. In such circumstances, no signaling equilibrium exists.
  • Existence of Linear Equilibria in the Kyle Model with Multiple Informed Traders with Thomas Tröger. Economics Letters 72:2, 159-164, 2001.
    Idea
    Kyle’s market-order model in Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading has a tractable linear equilibrium when asset values and noise trading are normally distributed. How restrictive is linearity? Under independence and finite second moments, requiring a linear equilibrium for two different numbers of informed traders is enough. Both distributions must then be normal.
  • How Costly is the Honest Signaling of Need? with Larry Samuelson. Journal of Theoretical Biology 197, 527-539, 1999.
    Idea
    In costly-signaling models, begging tells parents which offspring truly need resources. Empirical studies, however, found the costs of begging surprisingly small. The paper explains why this need not undermine honest signaling. Signaling costs are proportional to the parent’s fitness loss from providing resources, not to the offspring’s benefit. Modest costs can therefore support large benefits.
  • Sequential Investments and Options to Own with Klaus M. Schmidt. Rand Journal of Economics 29, 633-653, 1998.
    Idea
    The paper explains contingent ownership in joint ventures. It shows how options to own can induce efficient sequential, relationship-specific investments.
  • On Testing for Financial Market Equilibrium under Asymmetric Information Journal of Political Economy 105, 1107-1113, 1997.
    Idea
    This paper identifies an error in Lang, Litzenberger, and Madrigal’s Testing Financial Market Equilibrium under Asymmetric Information. The error invalidates the authors’ testing strategy.
  • A Dynamic Model of Equilibrium Selection in Signaling Markets with Larry Samuelson. Journal of Economic Theory 73, 118-156, 1997.
    Idea
    Signaling models often have many equilibria. Standard refinements select among them by restricting beliefs after events that never occur. This paper instead studies adaptive price adjustment with rare experimentation. The outcomes that recur in the long run provide a dynamic foundation for familiar refinements and show when separating or pooling outcomes are robust.
  • Option Contracts and Renegotiation: a Solution to the Hold-up Problem with Klaus M. Schmidt. Rand Journal of Economics 26, 163-179, 1995.
    Idea
    In Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation, Hart and Moore show that incomplete contracts lead to inefficiently low relationship-specific investment when ex post renegotiation cannot be prevented. This paper overturns their result by allowing simple options to trade. If courts can verify delivery, such contracts induce efficient investment and trade even though renegotiation remains possible.
  • An Evolutionary Analysis of Backward and Forward Induction with Larry Samuelson. Games and Economic Behavior 5, 425-454, 1993.
    Idea
    Can adaptation generate backward and forward induction without imposing them as rationality requirements? The paper studies an evolutionary process driven by learning and rare mutations. Locally stable outcomes satisfy both forms of induction. The long-run distribution shows why subgame perfection need not uniquely determine behavior.
  • Signalling in a Dynamic Labour Market with Eric van Damme. Review of Economic Studies 57, 1-23, 1990.
    Idea
    Spence’s seminal signalling model treats education as a one-shot signal. This paper lets firms bid during education and lets workers leave at any time. As offers become frequent, plausible equilibria converge to the least-cost separating equilibrium. Competition turns rejection of an offer into an implicit commitment to continue education.

Unpublished Discussion Papers

  • Switching Away from Probability One Beliefs with Eric van Damme. Discussion Paper, 1990.
    Idea
    The paper examines a restriction on belief updating in dynamic games of incomplete information: once a type is assigned probability one on the equilibrium path, subsequent behavior cannot overturn that belief. The restriction seems intuitive. The paper argues that it is nevertheless problematic.

Contact

Faculty of Business and Economics
University of Basel
Peter Merian-Weg 6
4002 Basel
Switzerland
georg.noeldeke@unibas.ch