To mark what would have been Jim Mirrlees’ 90th birthday on 4 July, Nuffield College (Oxford University)  is auctioning off some signed books from Jim’s personal collection and other special items of Jim’s generously donated by the Mirrlees family and the artist Yu Ji. The proceeds will support a fund for scholarships in Jim’ s memory.

The auction is conducted entirely online and is open to all.

Our auction is a simplification of the Product-Mix Auction that Paul Klemperer (Jim’s successor as Oxford’s Edgeworth Professor) designed for the Bank of England in 2007-8 at the beginning of the financial crisis. The Bank still runs its version regularly, and has now sold almost £400 billion of repos using it. (We expect to raise a little less!) This version has been programmed by Edwin Lock (Nuffield Research Fellow, 2021-24) who, along with Elizabeth Baldwin (Nuffield Research Fellow 2016-2017), has been involved with Paul in the further development of the Product-Mix Auction. (For more on this auction, see this paper, or this 5-minute film published by the Guardian newspaper.)

…The auction is focused on “social welfare”, not expected revenue…

SEE THE ITEMS AND BID HERE

Here is the link, via Tim Harford and Paul Klemperer..