Itai Sher
Associate Professor | Undergraduate Program Director
Education
- Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2007
- M.A., Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin, 2001
- B.A., Philosophy, Reed College, 1997
Professional Experience
- Associate Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2017-Present)
- Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego (2015-2017)
- Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota (2007-2015)
Research Interests
- Welfare Economics
- Ethics and Economics
- Microeconomic Theory
Professional Activities
- Co-organizer of Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics at the Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago, October 2014.
- Co-organizer of Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics at the Harvard Business School, October 2016.
Publications
1. "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights Imply Inconsistent Comparisons of Tax Policies",
American Economic Review 114(2), pp. 3551-3577 (2024).
2. “Freedom and Voting Power”, forthcoming at Social Choice and Welfare.
3. “Voting Rules”, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, pp. 401-415,
(2022).
4. “Neutral Freedom and Freedom as Control,” Social Choice and Welfare 56, pp. 21-56 (2021).
5. “Normative Aspects of Kantian Equilibrium,” Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and
Economics, 13(2), 43-84 (2020).
6. “How Perspective-based Aggregation Undermines the Pareto Principle” Politics, Philosophy &
Economics 19(2) (2020), pp. 182-205.
7. “Comparative Value and the Weight of Reasons,” Economics & Philosophy 35 (2019), pp. 103-
158.
8. “Evaluating Allocations of Freedom,” The Economic Journal 128 (2018), pp. F65-F94.
9. “Ethical Considerations on Quadratic Voting,” (with Ben Laurence) Public Choice 172(1-2)
(2017), pp.195-222.
10. “Price Discrimination through Communication,” (with Rakesh Vohra) Theoretical Economics
(2015), pp. 597-648.
11. “Children’s Strategic Theory of Mind,” (with Melissa Koenig and Aldo Rustichini)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(37) (2014), pp. 13307-13312.
12. “Identifying Combinatorial Valuations from Aggregate Demand,” (with Kyoo il Kim),
Journal of Economic Theory 153 (2014), pp. 428-458.
13. “Persuasion and Dynamic Communication,” Theoretical Economics 9 (2014), pp. 99-136.
14. “Optimal Shill Bidding in the VCG Mechanism,” Economic Theory 50 (2012), pp. 341-387.
15. “Credibility and Determinism in a Game of Persuasion,” Games and Economic Behavior 71
(2011), pp. 409-419.
16. “Individual Error, Group Error, and the Value of Information,” (2005) Proceedings of the
10th Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge.
Working Papers
- “Neutral Freedom and Freedom as Control” revise and resubmit, American Economic Review
- “Comparative Value and the Weight of Reasons”
- “The Symmetry Order: Formal Properties of a Freedom Measure”
- "Value Pluralism: Subordination and Balancing"
Work in Progress
“Tax Salience: The Equality-Honest-Efficiency Tradeoff”
Conference Organization
Co-organizer of Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics held at the Becker
Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago on October 24-25, 2014. Funded by the Becker
Friedman Institute.
Co-organizer of second biennial Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics held at
the Harvard Business School on October 21-22, 2016. Funded by Harvard Business School, The
Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative at Harvard, and the Harvard Philosophy Department.
Co-organizer of third biennial Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics to be held
at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on October 26-27, 2018. Funded by the
University of Pennsylvania.
Co-organizer of Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics to be held jointly at Duke
University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Originally scheduled for October,
2020, but currently delayed due to covid. Funded by the Center for Law, Economics and Public
Policy and the Kennan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
Organizer of Session on “Voting Institutions: Political Equality and Popular Control” at the 2019
Annual Conference of the Philosophy, Politics & Economics
Organizer of Session on “Freedom” at the 2020 Annual Conference of the Philosophy, Politics &
Economics (canceled due to covid)
Scientific. Committee Member for the 2021 15th Annual Conference for International Network for
Economic Method (INEM)
Program Committee Member for Formal Ethics 2020 at Vanderbilt University (cancelled due to
covid)
Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Conference 2013 session organizer.
Session Title: Mechanism Design and Distributive Justice.
Grants, Honors, and Awards
Single Semester Leave, University of Minnesota, 2012
Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry, and Scholarship, University of Minnesota, 2009-2011.
Northwestern University Fellowship, 2001-2002
Commendation for Excellence in Scholarship, Reed College, 1994-1995, 1995-1996.
Presentations
2024: University of Massachusetts Amherst, Australian Public Economics Exchange (APEX) 2024,
University of Connecticut, W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy at the University of
Rochester.
2023: Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research, Global Priorities Institute, Oxford
University, Northwestern Conference in Honor of Eddie Dekel, King’s College London
2022: Brandeis University, New Approaches to Normative Economics Workshop and Oxford
Martin School, University of Oxford.
2021: UC Riverside, Welfare Economics and Public Policy Seminar, University of Chicago Harris
School of Public Policy Political Economy Workshop.
2020: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society Fourth Annual Meeting (canceled due to covid);
Political Economy Seminar at the Harris School (canceled due to covid).
2019: North American Winter Meeting of the Econometric Society; Politics, Philosophy, and
Economics Society Third Annual Meeting; Analytical Political Economy Workshop; Stockholm
Region Workshop on Economics and Philosophy, University at Albany—SUNY.
2018: ASSA Annual Meeting (planned); Politics, Philosophy & Economics Conference (Tulane University – planned); Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society Second Annual Meeting.
2017: University of California, Merced; London School of Economics; University of Massachusetts Amherst; Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society Inaugural Meeting; Amherst College; National Tax Association Annual Conference (planned); Virginia Tech Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Public Speaker Series (planned).
2016: Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics (Harvard Business School), Conference on Quadratic Voting and the Public Good (Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago); University of California, Davis; Claremont Graduate University; Workshop on Reasons and Mental States in Decision Theory (London School of Economics).
2015: University of California, San Diego; Econometric Society World Congress; Canadian Economic Theory Conference; Kansas State University.
2014: University of California, San Diego; Conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics (Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago); Social Choice and Welfare Conference; Paul Sabatier University; Formal Ethics Conference; Canadian Economic Theory Conference.
2013: Society for Advancement of Economic Theory Conference; University of Wisconsin- Madison.
2012: Econometric Society North American Summer Meeting; Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meetings.
2011: Conference on Bounded Rationality, Revealed Preferences and Consumer Demand (University College London); Université de Montréal; Conference on Economic Design; Canadian Economic Theory Conference.
2010: Midwest Economic Theory Meetings; Econometric Society World Congress; Tel Aviv University; Hebrew University; Midwest Economic Theory Meetings.
2009: Stony Brook Game Theory Conference; Conference on Economic Design; Journées Louis- André Gérard-Varet Conference in Public Economics; Econometric Society North American Summer Meetings, Canadian Economic Theory Conference; University of Western Ontario; London School of Economics; University College London; University of Oxford.
2008: University of Wisconsin-Madison; University of Texas at Austin; Midwest Economic Theory Meetings; Game Theory Society World Congress; Logic and the Foundations of Game and Decision Theory Conference; Econometric Society North American Summer Meetings; Midwest Economic Theory Meetings; Canadian Economic Theory Conference.
2007: Université de Montréal; Arne Ryde Symposium on Communication in Games and Experiments; Penn State; University of Rochester; University of Minnesota; Princeton University; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of British Columbia.
2005: Econometric Society World Congress; Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge Conference; Conference on Deliberation and Collective Choice (Northwestern University)
Teaching
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Economics and Ethics 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Economics of Risk and Uncertainty 2019
Honors Thesis Seminar, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2021-2022
Game Theory (Graduate Class), 2018, 2020
Honors Game Theory (Undergraduate Class) 2023
Game Theory (Undergraduate Class) 2024
Mathematical Methods in Economics (Graduate Class) 2020
University of California, San Diego
Microeconomics, Part A, 2016.
Microeconomics, Part B, 2015-2017.
Microeconomics Principles, 2017.
Operations Research, 2016.
Decisions Under Uncertainty, 2016.
University of Minnesota
Noncooperative Game Theory (Graduate Class), 2007, 2009, 2014, 2015.
Game Theory and Applications (Honors Undergraduate Class), 2007-2015.
Freshman Seminar: Strategic Thinking and Social Interaction, 2008-2015.
Advising (at the University of Minnesota)
Jose Garces Ceballos, Dissertation Committee Member
Se Ho Kwak, Dissertation Committee Member
Weikai Chen, Dissertation Committee Member (Graduated 2020).
Murat Ali Cengelci, Dissertation Committee Member (Graduated 2013).
Cristoph Mueller, Dissertation Committee Member (Graduated 2010).
Evsen Turkay, Dissertation Committee Member (Graduated 2009).
Nathan Gutt (Philosophy), Non-Departmental Dissertation Proposal Committee Member.
James Cooper, Advisor for Undergraduate Honors Thesis on “Banzhaf Power with Correlated
Preferences”, 2014.
Anton Okhrimchuk, Advisor for Undergraduate Honors Thesis on “Game Theoretic Analysis of
Economic Sanctions”, 2014.
Dillon Dropik, Advisor for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) project on
“Internet Auctions”, 2009.
Dimitriy Rozenblat, Advisor for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) project
on “Voting Power and the Elimination of the Electoral College”, 2014.
Professional Service
Referee for ACM Transactions of Economics and Computation, American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics, American Economic Review, American Economic Review: Insights, B. E.
Journal of Theoretical Economics, Canadian Journal of Economic Theory, Econometrica, Economic
Modelling, Economic Theory, Economics Letters, Economics and Philosophy, Ethical Theory and
Moral Practice, Ethics, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Feminist
Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, International Journal of Game Theory, International
Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Dynamics and Games,
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Ethics
and Social Philosophy, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Law, Economics,
and Organization, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics,
Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Management Science, Mathematical
Social Sciences, Mathematics of Operations Research, Mind, National Science Foundation,
OEconomia, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, Public Choice, Review of Economic Design, The
Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, The Scandinavian Journal of
Economics, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Social Choice and Welfare, Swiss National
Science Foundation, Theoretical Economics, Theory and Decision.