Department of Property hosts Professor Maroš Servátka for behavioural economics seminar

The Department of Property at the University of Auckland Business School, in partnership with the Department of Economics, hosted a research seminar by Professor Maroš Servátka of Macquarie Business School on Friday 20 March 2026.

Held at the Sir Owen G Glenn Building on the City Campus, the seminar - titled Market Design for Good: How Coordination and Choice Architecture Shape Volunteer and Donor Behavior - drew academic staff, doctoral researchers, and students from the Department of Property and the Department of Economics for an in-depth discussion on the behavioural foundations of altruistic markets.

Professor Servátka is a leading figure in experimental and behavioural economics. He is the Founding Director of the MQBS Vernon L. Smith Experimental Economics Laboratory at Macquarie Business School, and previously held an Associate Professor position at the University of Canterbury, where he directed the New Zealand Experimental Economics Laboratory. His research has been published in leading economics and management journals and has informed advisory work with industry, government, and non-profit organisations.

The seminar focused on his recent study, Coordination in altruistic markets with imperfect substitutes, which examines how decentralised donor and volunteer choices can generate inefficiencies in charitable markets.

Charitable giving and volunteering provide essential goods and services in areas where governments fall short, yet altruistic markets often suffer from coordination failures. Through a laboratory experiment, Professor Servátka and his co-authors found that preferred altruistic goods are oversupplied when alternatives are unattractive, but undersupplied when alternatives become sufficiently valuable — generating substantial welfare losses despite ample aggregate willingness to help.

The study then introduced a simple, transparent coordination device that signals to donors when demand for a preferred good is saturated and redirects excess contributions toward alternatives. The results showed that this mechanism significantly improves market efficiency without reducing participation. The central insight is that even minimal, transparent coordination arrangements can convert good intentions into tangible social impact, meaningfully enhancing the efficiency of charitable and volunteer-based markets.

The research illustrates how rigorous experimental methods can generate practical, evidence-based insights for charities, policymakers, and organisations seeking to design more effective altruistic markets.
The seminar concluded with an active question-and-answer session, in which attendees engaged Professor Servátka on the experimental design choices, the external validity of laboratory findings, and the broader implications of the work for public policy and non-profit practice.

The seminar was co-organised by the Department of Economics and the Department of Property at the University of Auckland Business School, reflecting a shared interest between the two departments in advancing interdisciplinary research collaboration. The Department of Property looks forward to hosting further seminars that bring leading international researchers into dialogue with the University of Auckland's academic community.