Surrogacy law in Israel

Apparently it is legal for heterosexual couples to pay surrogate mothers in Israel, but not for same sex couples, and there is legislation being proposed to change this. As usual, it's complicated.
Ministers will vote on surrogacy for gay couples

"The new surrogacy bill is up for vote: The Knesset Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs will discuss Health Minister Yael German's (Yesh Atid) bill Monday, allowing gay couples to use surrogacy services in Israel.
...
It is still unclear whether there will be a majority to pass the bill..
...
"According to the existing "surrogacy law", only heterosexual couples can have access to paid surrogacy. Two years ago the Mor-Yosef committee was asked to decide on the matter and ruled that gay couples should be allowed to use surrogacy under the condition that the surrogate mother is not paid.

"According to the new bill, Health Minister German supplements what she considers a "revolution," allowing gay couples paid surrogacy – much like heterosexual couples.

"This move – which is expected to bring great demand for surrogacy – is not free of limitations. Couples will be allowed to undergoing only two surrogacy procedures, the couples' mothers and grandmothers will not be allowed to be surrogates; however the possibility of having a family member as surrogate does expand to sisters and cousins.

"In addition the bill limits the age of men turning to surrogacy to 54 and not without limitation of age as it has been until now. On the other hand, the allowed surrogacy age has gone up to 38, two years more than what the existing law permits.

Utku Unver and Tayfun Sonmez talk about kidney exchange--video

Tayfun Sonmez and Utku Unver have a video on Boston College's YouTube channel:

"Published on Feb 23, 2014
Groundbreaking research by Boston College economists Tayfun Sönmez and Utku Ünver sparks hope for patients with kidney disease while advancing the University's philosophy of "men and women for others."
 Video Produced by Sean Casey "

Good summary of 15 minute talk on market design and experimental economics at Pitt

At the University of Pittsburgh, where I'm now an alum, I gave a 15 minute talk without slides, and it was covered in this news story by Kimberly Barlow, which I thought did a pretty good job of summarizing it.

Computer-assisted smart markets, at UC Davis

I'll be speaking today at UC Davis:

Alvin Roth Lecture: Computer-Assisted Smart Markets

March 06, 2014
3:00 pm to 5:00 pm 

Department of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series
Alvin Roth (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Computer-Assisted Smart Markets: From Labor Markets to Kidney Exchange

Thursday March 6, 2014, 3:10 p.m.
Student Community Center Multi-Purpose Room

Reception and refreshments 2:30 p.m.

More and more modern marketplaces are mediated by computers, and this opens up some new possibilities for market design, and new areas of intersection between economics and computer science. I will give examples from the design of the labor market clearinghouses for American doctors (“the Match”) through which most doctors in the U.S. get their first jobs, and from the design of kidney exchange clearinghouses that help match patients with compatible living kidney donors.

Alvin Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is also the Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. He works in the areas of game theory, experimental economics and market design. He shared the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Host: Dan Gusfield, Department of Computer Science

Co-hosted by Department of Economics, UC Davis

Levine Family Series: Alvin Roth (Stanford University)

"Computer-Assisted Smart Markets: From Labor Markets to Kidney Exchange"

When	Mar 06, 2014 from 03:00 PM to 05:00 PM
Where	Student Community Center Multi-Purpose Room

More on industrial farming

Are some farming transactions repugnant? The NY Times runs a story under the headline Wishing They All Could Be California Hens

"Hens in California are living the good life. Many can now lay their eggs in oversize enclosures roomy enough to stand up, lie down — even extend their wings fully without touching another bird.

Hens in most other states don’t have it so good. Their conditions, as the head of California’s egg trade group explained, are “like you sitting in an airplane seat in the economy section all your life.”

So if you’re a hen, you want to live in California. Short of that, you want California-size leg room. And that’s precisely what lawmakers in California are demanding of out-of-state farmers who sell eggs in California — setting off a feud over interstate commerce that has spilled over into the farmyard at large.

The Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the California egg rules, and at least three other states are considering doing the same. The beef and pork lobbies are also lining up against the California rules in an effort to prevent any new restrictions on raising livestock."
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Here are my previous posts on food, most of them also related to repugnance...

Insider trading 2.0

The WSJ reports on the increasingly repugnant practice of selling access to news earlier to some customers than others:
Firm Stops Giving High-Speed Traders Direct Access to Releases--Warren Buffett Involved in Berkshire Unit Business Wire's Decision to End Practice

"[New York Attorney General Eric]  Schneiderman has begun cracking down on practices that provide high-speed traders with opportunities to act first on market-moving information, referring to such access as "Insider Trading 2.0."
...
"Traders engaged in this so-called race to zero, a measure of the difference between the pace of order transmissions and the speed of light, are constantly pushing to get news and market data a fraction of a second before their competitors.

"We see the AG action and the Business Wire story highlighting a deeper problem" with the stock market, said Eric Budish, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who has studied high-speed markets.

"The problem, Mr. Budish said, is that markets in which the first trader to enter an order wins the race give too much of an advantage to traders with the fastest technology.

"Instead, he says, markets should favor investors who offer the best price, even if that order comes in a fraction of a second after a speedier trader."
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Mr Budish and his recent paper on high speed trading have been getting some other press lately as well, see
Declawing Speed Traders Is Goal of Stock Market Revamp Proposal

"In the paper written with Peter Cramton of the University of Maryland and John Shim at Booth School, Budish showed the opportunities that exist for speedy traders by looking at the trading patterns of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY:US) and futures on the S&P 500. They found that the price of E-mini contracts often jumps before the ETF, creating the chance for fast traders to make money from buying the fund before the market reacts. While the time shrank from a median of 97 milliseconds in 2005 to 7 milliseconds in 2011, the arbitrage opportunity still exists, the authors said."

Paul Klemperer on the product mix auction, and market design (video)

How geometry came to the rescue during the banking crisis - video

"Economist Paul Klemperer of Oxford University describes how he invented an auction based on a new kind of geometry to help the Bank of England as the financial crisis took hold in 2007. The auction got money to the banks and building societies that needed it most urgently. The then governor Mervyn King later called it 'a marvelous application of theoretical economics to a practical problem of vital importance'. Klemperer describes how similar auctions can help other government departments allocate resources.  The video featured as the Editor's Choice on the Guardian on 12th July 2013."