Management Science Research Centre (MSRC) Seminar: Ali Aouad
Ali Aouad
MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Optimal Subsidy Design: Application to Food Assistance Programs
Date: Friday, April 24, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: Armstrong Room 375
Abstract
The design of a subsidy poses a classic demand management problem: choosing an offer set (bundle, assortment, voucher) that balances policy efficiency with flexibility of individual choice. In the food security context, in-kind subsidies are major safety nets in the Global South to curb malnutrition and involve large-scale supply chains鈥攖he Public Distribution System in India serves hundreds of millions of beneficiaries. We introduce a high-frequency, transaction-level tracking method that reveals how households respond to alternative in-kind subsidies in underserved communities. We present experimental evidence of trade-offs between take-up (demand) and efficiency (in terms of nutritional goals) when designing food assistance programs. We develop a probabilistic choice model that captures subsidy take-up behavior and formulate the optimal subsidy design problem that balances paternalistic efficiency goals with beneficiaries鈥� utility. Using efficient approximation schemes, we explore various subsidy designs and gain insights into simple policies that can improve performance on our dual objective compared to current practice.
Joint work with Kamalini Ramdas, Alp Sungu, and Zhicong Hu
Bio
Ali Aouad is the Sloan School Career Development Assistant Professor and an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at MIT Sloan. His research focuses on algorithm design and data-driven decision processes with applications covering revenue management, market design, and public and societal operations. His work was recognized by several awards, including the 2024 POMS Analytics Research Challenge Prize, the 2022 INFORMS Second Prize of the Junior Faculty Interest Group, and a selection for funding in the European Research Council鈥檚 2022 HORIZON Starting Grant. Before MIT, he was an Associate Professor at London Business School (UK) and an Applied Scientist at Uber Technologies (2018-2019), where he contributed to new matching and pricing technology and product innovations. Ali earned his PhD in Operations Research from MIT ORC in 2017.
