Essays in Design Economics

This thesis contains two essays in philosophy of science on the value and application of economic theory and one essay in microeconomics on optimal multidimensional auction design.

On the topic of the value of economic theory in design economics, I propose a philosophical reformulation of scientific realism that is appropriate to the scientific domain of economics (Chapter 2). In virtue of this formulation, I argue that economic theory partly explains the successes of design economics.

In Chapter 4, I advance a unified theory of observer effects across the social sciences, a problem I call reflexive measurement. This theoretical understanding of the role of reflexivity extends more generally to all aspects of science including prediction and theorizing. I also examine the role of economic theory in addressing this problem.

In addition to these two philosophical contributions, Chapter 3 is an extended exploration of optimal auction design in the multidimensional setting of a single good with multiple quality levels using simulations. This work examines whether the exclusive-buyer mechanism is optimal and offers several conjectures concerning qualitative properties of optimal mechanisms in this analytically intractable setting.