I am an Assistant Professor in the Operations & Technology Management department at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University. Before joining BU, I was an Assistant Professor at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, Purdue University. My CV can be found here.
My research is about markets, technology, and design. I develop theory to understand how dynamic markets work when information is limited, participants act strategically, and coordination is difficult, and to design simple, robust rules that improve matching and the allocation of scarce resources. My work ranges from digital platforms and the sharing economy to public systems such as organ allocation, with a growing focus on how AI-driven decisions reshape incentives and institutions.
You can reach me at pqian20 at gmail dot com.
- Market Design
- Platforms and Technology
- Stochastic Systems
- AI
PhD in Decision, Risk, and Operations, 2021
Columbia Businss School
BS in Mathematics, 2015
Peking University
What’s New
Aug 2026 | Our paper "Coordinating Markets via Perturbed Prices" is now available online! |
Jun 2026 | Our paper "Priority and Externalities in Dynamic Matching" is now available online! |
Jun 2026 | Our paper "Optimal Incentive Design for Decentralized Dynamic Matching Markets" was accepted to Management Science. |
May 2026 | Our paper "Congested Waiting Lists and Organ Allocation" was accepted to EC 2026. |
Jun 2025 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" was accepted to Management Science. |
Oct 2024 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" won First Place in 2024 INFORMS Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG) Paper Competition! |
Jul 2024 | Our paper "Incentivizing Resource Pooling" won First Place in 2024 Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE) Paper Competition! |
Jun 2024 | I have moved to the Questrom School of Business, Boston University! |
Jan 2024 | Excited to serve as a co-chair of the Auctions and Market Design (AMD) cluster at INFORMS 2024. |
Working Papers
11. Fair Real-Time Matching
Work in progress.
10. Coordinating Markets via Perturbed Prices
with Süleyman Kerimov [ SSRN ]
Submitted.
9. Priority and Externalities in Dynamic Matching
with Itai Ashlagi and Elaine Liu [ SSRN ]
Submitted.
8. Availability is All You Need
with Süleyman Kerimov, Mingwei Yang, and Sophie H. Yu [ arXiv ]
Major revision: Management Science.
7. Congested Waiting Lists and Organ Allocation
with Itai Ashlagi and Ravi Jagadeesan [ SSRN ]
Working paper.
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 26)
6. Price Discovery in Waiting Lists
with Itai Ashlagi, Jacob Leshno and Amin Saberi [ SSRN | EC Version | Al Roth's blog post ]
Working paper.
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 20)
5. Large Deviations Optimal Scheduling of Closed Queueing Networks
with Siddhartha Banerjee and Yash Kanoria [ arXiv | SIGMETRICS Version ]
Under revision.
Preliminary version: SIGMETRICS 18
Publications
4. Optimal Incentive Design for Decentralized Dynamic Matching Markets
with Chen Chen and Jingwei Zhang [ SSRN ]
Management Science (accepted)
3. Incentivizing Resource Pooling
with Chen Chen and Yilun Chen [ SSRN | EC Version ]
Management Science (2025+)
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 24)
Presentation at MSOM Service Management SIG Meeting 2024
First Place, 2024 INFORMS Junior Faculty Interest Group (JFIG) Paper Competition
First Place, 2024 Chinese Scholars Association for Management Science and Engineering (CSAMSE) Paper Competition
2. The Competition for Partners in Matching Markets
with Yash Kanoria and Seungki Min [ arXiv | SODA Version | MS Version | Al Roth's blog post ]
Management Science (2025)
Preliminary version: ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 21)
1. Blind Dynamic Resource Allocation in Closed Networks via Mirror Backpressure
with Yash Kanoria [ arXiv | EC Version | MS Version ]
Management Science (2024)
Preliminary version: ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 20)
Honorable Mention, 2021 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Student Paper Competition