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Josué Ortega

j.ortega@qub.ac.uk

I am a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Queen's University Belfast, specializing in market design.

I have published in Games and Economic Behavior, the Journal of Mathematical Economics, and Social Choice and Welfare. My research has been covered by The Economist, The Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, BBC's Thinking Allowed, and Forbes.

I obtained my PhD from the University of Glasgow, advised by Hervé Moulin.

I sit on the program committees of the Economics and Computation Conference (2023–2025), the Matching in Practice Workshop (2022 & 2024), the Royal Economic Society Conference (2024) and the Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory (2025).

News: I am very excited about some new working papers studying which students can improve their Deferred Acceptance placements by trading cycles, comments are very welcome!

Identifying and Quantifying Unimprovable Students, with G. Ziegler, P. Aribillaga and G. Zhao [slides]Previously circulated as Unimprovable students and inequality in school choice
What Stable-Dominating Mechanisms Cannot Fix, with G. Ziegler, P. Aribillaga and G. Zhao
Improvable students in school choice, w. T Knipe

Publications

1. School choice with independent versus consolidated districts

Games and Economic Behavior (2024) with T. Klein and R. Aue,

2. The cost of strategy-proofness in school choice

Games and Economic Behavior (2023) with T. Klein,

-> extended abstract in the Matching under Preferences Workshop.

3. Fair cake-cutting in practice

Games and Economic Behavior (2022) with M. Kyropoulou and E. Segal-Halevi,

-> extended abstract in the Conference on Economics and Computation.

4. Obvious manipulations in cake-cutting

Social Choice and Welfare (2022) with E. Segal-Halevi.

5. On the integration of Shapley-Scarf housing markets

Journal of Mathematical Economics (2022) with K. Manocha and R. Kumar,

-> extended abstract in the Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory.

6. Efficiency and fairness in cake-cutting with single-peaked preferences

Economics Letters (2020) with B. Bhardwaj and R. Kumar

7. Multi-unit assignment under dichotomous preferences

Mathematical Social Sciences (2020).

8. The losses from integration in matching markets can be large

Economics Letters (2019)

9. Social integration in two-sided matching markets

Journal of Mathematical Economics (2018)

Working Papers and Projects

Identifying and Quantifying Unimprovable Students, with G. Ziegler, P. Aribillaga and G. Zhao [slides]

Previously circulated as Unimprovable students and inequality in school choice

What Stable-Dominating Mechanisms Cannot Fix, with G. Ziegler, P. Aribillaga and G. Zhao

Asymptotic analysis of the Boston mechanism

Improvable students in school choice, w. T Knipe

The limits of school choice with consent, with G. Ziegler

-> extended abstract in the Conference on Web and Internet Economics.

Experimental school choice with parents as subjects [slides]

Appeals in school choice [slides]

Social integration via online dating, with P. Hergovich.

Refereeing and Editorial Activities

Program Committee:

Conference on Economics and Computation (EC); 2023, 2024, 2025.
Matching under Preferences workshop (Match-UP); 2022, 2024.
Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory (SAGT); 2025.
Royal Economic Society Conference; 2024.
Irish Economic Society Conference; 2025.

Journals: Journal of Economic Theory, Theoretical Economics, Management Science, AEJ Microeconomics, Games and Economic Behavior, European Economic Review, Journal of Mathematical Economics, Social Choice and Welfare, Economics Letters, International Journal of Game Theory, Economic Inquiry, Theory and Decision, Social Networks, Mathematical Social Sciences, Journal of Demographic Economics, Stochastic Systems.

Other Conferences: EC 2020, WINE 2018, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Games, Agents & Incentives Workshop.

Co-Chair: Irish Economic Theory network.

Others

PhD Students

Taylor Knipe, (2024 - present), funded by the Northern Ireland Department of Economy.

Conferences Organised

Irish economic society conference, Belfast 2025.
Irish economic theory workshop, Belfast 2024.
Easter workshop on school choice, Belfast 2022.
15th matching in practice workshop, Mannheim 2018.

Awards and Grants

As PI:

ESRC Impact Acceleration (£24,400).
British Academy small grant (£10,000).
Seal of Excellence for Marie Curie fellowship (€162,806).

As co-PI:

Design and impact of admissions rules for schools, Leibniz Association (€330,000).
Improving school admissions for diversity, Leibniz Association (€340,000).

Internal Grants:

North America Research Mobility Fund, QUB Faculty Research Initiatives Fund, EssexLab Seedcorn Fund Grant, Glasgow - Columbia Principal's Early Career Mobility Fund.

Awards:

Early Career Mathematician Prize for the best article in Mathematics Today in 2016
Queen’s Management School Research Innovation Prize.

Personal

Mexican and British citizen.

Address: Office 02.021, Riddel Hall Block 3, 185 Stranmillis Rd, Belfast BT9 5EE

Interests: football, latin-american literature, guitars, coffee.

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